


wait for me to come home (revised)

by abyssith



Category: Game Grumps
Genre: ALL THE FUCKING KISSES SERIOUSLY, Anal Sex, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Character Development, Developing Relationship, F/M, First Dates, First Kiss, Heavy Angst, IT WAS A MAJOR COINCIDENCE PLEASE BELIEVE ME, Jealousy, Kissing, Love Confessions, M/M, Multi, Open Marriage, Open Relationships, Personal Growth, Photographs, Porn with Feelings, Reconciliation, Slow Dancing, Songfic, Suicidal Thoughts, THE ASHLEY MENTIONED IN THIS IS NOT REAL LIFE ASHLEY, THIS WAS WRITTEN BEFORE DAN AND ASH CONFIRMED THEIR RELATIONSHIP, Texting, Tooth-Rotting Fluff, both warnings are EXTREMELY brief as in one sentence each, but just to be safe., mentions of cutting scars, oh god here we go.
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-28
Updated: 2018-11-28
Packaged: 2019-08-29 08:17:18
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 34,509
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16740394
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/abyssith/pseuds/abyssith
Summary: He mouths a silent Thank You, even though he's not sure who it might be to. Big G-God, other gods, ancestral spirits, maybe even the universe itself. But, he reasons, some sort of thanks is in order.-they are together for six beautiful years.





	wait for me to come home (revised)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [nerdishb0i](https://archiveofourown.org/users/nerdishb0i/gifts), [vinndetta](https://archiveofourown.org/users/vinndetta/gifts).
  * Inspired by [wait for me to come home](https://archiveofourown.org/works/11923089) by [abyssith](https://archiveofourown.org/users/abyssith/pseuds/abyssith). 



> rewrite of the above fic
> 
> song: Photograph // Ed Sheeran
> 
> **Possible trigger warnings for parts v (full moon) and ix (frigidity)**

_loving can hurt, loving can hurt sometimes_

_but it's the only thing that i know_

_when it gets hard, you know it can get hard sometimes_

_it is the only thing that makes us feel alive_

 

### i. dawn

 **🖕** **_Big Cat_ ** **💕😍** **_is typing…_ **

**🖕Big Cat 💕😍 (11:37 PM):** **_come to my office_ **

**_…_ **

**🖕** **_Big Cat_ ** **💕😍** **_is typing…_ **

**🖕Big Cat 💕😍 (11:42 PM):** **_please :(_ **

**🖕Big Cat 💕😍 (11:42 PM):** **_I gotta talk to you_ **

Dan stares at the short series of texts until the brightness of the screen begins to burn into his eyes. When he closes them, the words pulse behind his eyelids, filling his mind with thoughts when all he really wants to do is think about himself.

The office is full of people talking, laughing, but he doesn’t hear any of them. He opens his eyes and lets them dart over the walls and then back over his screen again and again. He tries to pick a point on his dark computer in front of him to refocus, but he can’t seem to get a hand on his own concentration. He doesn’t even notice he’s mouthing the words and even whispering them under his breath until he notices Ross, who is staring at him oddly at the edge of his vision.

Dan wheels around to face him in his chair, blinking. He doesn’t even feel all that embarrassed. Before Ross says anything, Dan announces, “I’ll be right back.”

He grabs the armrest and peels himself off the leather chair. Ross raises his eyebrows, but just shrugs and moves back so Dan can brush past him without a word.

Dan hastily makes his way through the office. His heart pounds in his throat and his knees threaten to give out at any step. He’s nauseous, but not for the reasons one would think. He knows what the texts are about, he knows why Arin wants to see him alone. He’s seen all the glances when Arin doesn’t think Dan can see him. All those searching, fleeting, worried glances. And yet Dan’s afraid to admit it. Even to Arin.

He passes Suzy, who says to him without any need for explanation, “He’s free to talk for a while.”

“Great.”

He counts it as a blessing that he doesn’t even have to think as he traverses the building. His feet know where to take him, allowing him a couple of precious moments to space out and indulge in his anxiety. How easily he forgets his best friend is also his boss.

Dan only resurfaces when he finds himself in front of Arin’s closed door sooner than he expects. He purses his lips, suddenly itching to turn tail and run. He never wanted for anyone to find out about this. Certainly not Arin. But this is only because he’s selfish and guilty and has too many empty, awful thoughts for his own good. Not to mention it was a trivial thing that isn’t at all worthy of the heartache of a man like Dan.

A heavy exhale dries out his lips. He closes his eyes, raising his hand to knock on the door. It opens ajar when his knuckles land.

Dan blanches and looks inside. He spots Arin, who turns at the sound. A look of something like relief passes over his face.

Dan slips in, worried stare cast at the ground. “Close the door behind you,” Arin tells him, turning back to his computer. “I just need to reply to something. Gimme a sec, okay?”

He just nods, grabbing the doorknob and pushing the door closed. Despite Arin being the head of this company, Dan has never really grown accustomed to anything except his playful, vulgar, light-hearted self that he uses 80% of the time. He’s seen the other parts of his friend, but it’s always felt the same way as wearing someone else’s clothes.

He glances up at Arin against his will, finding that his eyes linger on the outline of his lips and nose for a second longer than normal. The fact that Arin doesn’t notice further encourages him. But he turns away soon enough to work on slowing his heartbeat and force his body to cooperate with his brain.

He winds up stretched out on the love seat. His arms instinctively reach for the pillow that’s always there and he gathers it to his chest to hug it tightly. He buries his face in it, using the scent that floods his nostrils to stabilize himself. It’s the smell of Arin, of beer, of that sharp cologne Dan’s always telling him to stop wearing but secretly craves. His breaths come slower, deeper, and soon he decides he has done an acceptable job of calming himself down.

A creak breaks the immersion, makes Dan flinch back. Arin is standing up from his chair; his eyes skim a printout in his hands before flicking over to Dan. As soon as the men make eye contact, the paper is forgotten, tossed on his desk haphazardly. Arin walks over and sits down at Dan’s feet, making the older man quickly draw his knees up.

He stares at Arin for a second before averting his eyes. A strange heat spreads through his gut. “So,” he says, fingers kneading the cushion in his hands.

“So,” Arin agrees. He scoots closer and props his arms on Dan’s knees.

Startled at the contact, Dan straightens and stares up at him again. Arin wastes no time beating around the bush. “Will you tell me what’s going on?” he asks softly. “You’ve been silent for, like, a week, man. It’s getting me all worried. Suzy’s always talking about you, too. We want you back, Danny.” He reaches out and squeezes Dan’s knee reassuringly.

Dan doesn’t answer immediately. He has to try and work around the lump sitting in his throat. “Yeah. I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be. I just want to know what happened to you—did someone hurt you? Is there someone I should kill?” Arin cracks his knuckles and pulls an over-exaggerated expression of fury, drawing a laugh from Dan. A short grin follows, but disappears as Dan regains the solemnity soon after. “But—I’m serious, Dan. I’m…I’m just concerned.”

“I know.” Despite this, Dan doesn’t speak again.

Arin sighs and nudges his legs until Dan swings them over the edge of the couch and sits properly. Arin moves until their thighs press together, bringing him close enough to sling an arm over Dan’s frame and pull him in. Dan tilts his face towards his friend, biting his lip and shuddering when Arin’s warm breath tickles his nose.

“Talk to me,” Arin murmurs, leaning forward. His eyes are big, round, safe. “You know you always can.”

Dan’s mouth twitches. It’s only by a miracle that he keeps level with Arin’s gaze. “It’s nothing,” he says instinctively. “Really. I—I promise, you know, I’ll get better.”

“No. No! No, that’s not enough,” Arin insists. His grip on Dan gets firmer.

Dan finally breaks eye contact, having to tightly shut his eyes to tell himself to _stop shaking_ —something he has been doing since Arin first touched him. “But it’s stupid,” he says in a pouty voice.

“I don’t care. You know I don’t. Look, I mean…” Arin takes a deep breath. “Okay. You don’t have to tell me. But—but I won’t tell anyone if you do. I just want to know because—man, Dan, I just care about you. Okay? I promise to be quiet, and I keep promises. You know that.”

Dan sighs. “Yeah, I do.” He’s quiet for a long second, and Arin keeps watching him. He feels the emission of patience and sincere affection coming from the man and washing into him, coaxing out his answer at last. “It’s just. You know, um. Ashley.”

Arin doesn’t miss a beat. “Broke up with you.”

“Well—yeah.” Tears well up in Dan’s eyes at the sharp declaration. “Yep.”

Arin spots the sadness a split second before Dan registers it. Suddenly Dan’s crying into his shoulder and sniffing and getting his shirt all dirty and wet but Arin doesn’t complain at all. He just envelops Dan with an steadfast hug with his face pressed into Dan’s head, rocking them back and forth and whispering things that Dan can’t hear but can feel—oh, he can feel them all.

Arin lets Dan cry and cry and cry and he’s just _there._ That’s all he needs. Dan feels his heart crack, feels the pieces stab at him under the surface of his skin, and it spreads through his chest and makes it harder to force air into his lungs. But Arin still holds him, undeterred, and something about his touch makes Dan’s pain so much easier to cope with. It becomes more dull, more muted by the feeling of Arin drawing meaningless pictures into his back. He chooses to focus on that rather than this horrible _feeling_ leaking from his heart.

He inhales. He exhales.

Slowly, the agony disappears all together. A powerful feeling pours like a thick syrup into the place the pain leaves behind, convincing Dan to relax. The little whimpers don’t stop for a while, but the tears do, and at last Dan grows silent.

In this quiet, they hold each other for a spell, where there is nothing but their bodies, their heartbeats, and their breaths that have long fallen in time together.

Arin says something, five minutes later, while he’s combing Dan’s unruly curls with one hand and massaging his lower back with the other. “You deserve better.”

“I know.” It comes out as a hiccup.

“You’re gonna be so much better off without that bitch.”

“Yeah.”

“You’ll be okay, Dan.”

He hiccups again. “Okay.” He hugs Arin tighter, twists his fingers into his shirt. “Okay.” A big cough. “I’ve done this before—I shouldn’t, uh, shouldn’t be crying like—like this. Shit, I’m…I’m really sorry—”

The swell in how tight Arin is holding him effectively cuts him off. “Don’t you fucking _dare_ apologize for having emotions, Dan,” Arin whispers fiercely. His lips brush Dan’s ear as his passionate words burst out of him like a song. “Don’t you fucking dare. You’re human, you get sad, you hate people, you cry. Okay? You’re allowed to have feelings, _especially_ after a break up.”

“But—it was only, like. Half a year. Barely,” Dan gasps, still struggling to find air.

“Who the fuck cares? She meant something to you.”

“I didn’t love her, though. Not—not really.”

“Well, good. It doesn’t matter.”

“Probably.” Dan draws back at last a few seconds later, temporarily ashamed by how he must look. Eventually he realizes that he shouldn’t care because he knows Arin doesn’t, not in the least. In a moment of reckless inspiration, he blurts, “But, I—I really love you.”

Arin furrows his brow. Redness spreads throughout his face—evidently, he had heard the earnest inflection Dan doesn’t often speak those words with. “Oh, wow. Where did that come from?”

Dan frowns deeply, shrinking out of the instant fear of the rejection he hadn’t expected at all. His windpipe closes up as a second wave of tears threatens to crest. “I—I just—”

“Fuck. Fuck, stop, I didn’t mean it like that. I’m so fucking sorry.” Arin hesitates. Sheepishness is written all over his face. “I love you too, Dan. More than you know.”

The heat blooms again. This time, it’s in Dan’s face.

 

.

.

.

 

_we keep this love in a photograph_

_we made these memories for ourselves_

_where our eyes are never closing_

_hearts are never broken_

_and time's forever frozen still_

 

### ii. sunrise

He doesn’t expect something as simple as holding hands with someone to get him blushing so bad. Especially not with Arin.

He had reached for Dan sometime within the first ten minutes of the movie and hasn’t let go since, squeezing his hand at just the right moments. Every time Arin does it, it brings a violent rush of blood flooding into Dan’s cheeks, and his head gets so light and fuzzy that he temporarily forgets about the movie for a few long seconds and he has to ask Arin what had happened. Arin answers him each time, but not without a glint in his eyes and a quirk in his smile that indicates he has caught on to Dan’s blunders.

Dan’s head is on Arin’s shoulder, hopefully out of his sight range so he can’t see how bad Dan has it. Though he isn’t ashamed of being with another man, he’s glad the theater is mostly empty. He’s still trying to get used to being the shyer one in the relationship. Arin hasn’t kissed him directly yet, but in this one first date Dan has already received enough delicate kisses on his hand and cheek that have all enticed his heart into playing a game of hopscotch in his throat. For a guy he’s spent probably at least a cumulative year with one-on-one for a living, Arin still somehow managed to catch him off guard.

“Danny,” Arin suddenly whispers. Dan flinches in surprise. “You know what’s going on right now, or are you distracted by just how fucking hot I am again?”

“Shut up,” Dan hisses, slapping his boyfriend’s wrist.

“But you still _think_ I’m hot, right?”

Dan pauses, and then turns his head and pushes his nose into Arin’s shoulder. “Of course,” he says, muffled by Arin’s arm. “You sexy hunk of meat.”

An abrupt bark of laughter explodes from his companion. Dan has to quickly clamp a hand over Arin’s mouth: the outburst drew a few startled and irritated stares, hammering home the point that they were not alone. Dan meets none of them, unable to stop giggling into Arin’s neck. “Oh, my god,” he groans. He turns his head to see the movie. His heart sinks when he notices that the scene they were at was the mandatory emotional climax. In his defense, Dan hadn’t exactly been the most attentive viewer.

Arin snorts and kisses the top of his head. “Just wanted to see how you’d react.”

“You’re such a little shit.”

“I’m _your_ little shit.” Arin releases Dan’s hand just to remove the armrest separating them in order to hug him with both arms. “Remember?”

Dan breathes in and out, powerless to stop the loopy smile that burns across his face. “I most certainly do,” he says, settling into Arin’s side. He closes his eyes. “Although I’m not sure how.”

“What do you mean?”

Dan pauses before answering. He looks back up at the movie, distracting himself with the movements of the main character. Was this a superhero movie? Possibly. “I’ve always, uh. Well. I’ve always really liked you,” he confesses. “For…uh, a long time.”

“Oh, yeah?” says Arin after a couple moments. “How long is a long time?”

“Er—well. Two…no, three, years?”

Dan can feel the shock pulse through Arin’s body. The hands around him flex and tighten where they are. Arin’s voice is deeper, undeniably shocked when he finds his response. “Three—three years, wow,” he says. “God. And you never—I mean, I never—fuck. Fuck, I’m so sorry—”

“No, no, don’t be,” Dan interrupts with a short laugh. “It’s fine! I was…pretty happy, you know, with who I was to you, and stuff, but I never really. You know. Stopped wishing, or trying. And so the fact that you, uh—well, that you feel the same, is…it’s pretty cool, y’know?” He sighs and chuckles a bit, inhaling deeply. “Wow. Yeah. It’s just…crazy. Crazy good.”

“Shit, Dan,” Arin whispers. “Yeah, of course. I love you, babe. Always have.”

Dan looks him in the eye for the first time since Arin had embraced him. His irises shine like bronze ingots in the constantly shifting light of the screen. “I love your eyes,” Dan says, almost more to himself than Arin.

Arin smirks and bends down, bringing their faces close. “Just my eyes?”

Dan shivers and opens his mouth to speak. He freezes, though, when Arin suddenly closes the distance between them to fasten his mouth gently around Dan’s. For a moment, there is nothing, and Dan scarcely feels his hands cupping Arin’s face.

He cannot move at all. All he can hear is his heart, the blood in his ears, the faint sounds Arin makes when he tilts his head for a slightly deeper angle. Something strong and terrifying and beautiful is churning in his stomach, and he’s scared that when they part, he might just pass out. One of his hand tugs at Arin’s shoulders, maybe trying to drag him in farther.

Arin obliges, of course. There is a kind of muted ferocity in his fingers that keeps Dan in a grip with a tightness that betrays Arin’s hunger to do more. Something holds him back, though, and Dan is privately grateful for that. It wouldn’t do to piss off the audience around them and be escorted out for shameless PDA. So Dan focuses on this appetizer, this taste of a feast he knows is yet to comes. He lets himself get lost in Arin’s musk and the softness of the shirt bunched up under his fingers. Arin’s lips are so unlike the many women he’s kissed, less full but much sturdier and perhaps even more confident.

Perhaps he would have written a poetic description of Arin’s mouth in his head, but at that moment, Dan is surprised by a flash of light that pulses red behind his eyelids. It rips him away from Arin and throws him back in his chair before he knows what he’s doing. He gasps and turns wildly to find the source of light, only noticing Arin’s poorly-kept laughter sealed behind his palm a few seconds later. His phone is in his hand, opened up to the camera.

“Arin!” Dan exclaims, grabbing the phone and rapidly tapping on the gallery. The most recent picture is a selfie, with the profile of Dan’s tightly scrunched face tilted away while Arin’s is leaned far in, kissing him, glee written all over his smug face. There is a touch of adoration in his opened eyes.

Dan doesn’t have much time to dwell on this, because the various hisses of fury echoing throughout the seats around them that are trying to silence them are only deepening his embarrassment. He lowers his voice accordingly and complains, “What—why di— _I thought_ we were having a moment!”

“We were, I swear,” Arin says after a long inhale. “I also swear I didn’t know the selfie flash was on. Fuck.”

“You’re so _loud!_ Shut _up!_ And oh my _God,_ why is your phone even out—”

“Okay, okay, no more nagging,” Arin relents, matching Dan’s volume. “Better?”

“Much.” Dan sighs and tilts his head back to try and glare at his boyfriend, knowing that he’s failing miserably. “So, wait—”

Arin turns his phone off and pockets it. He leans forward, bumps their noses together, and smiles widely. “I just wanted to capture the moment, baby,” he murmurs, kissing the corner of Dan’s mouth. “You’ll thank me later. I promise.”

Dan had stopped listening to Arin after the word _baby._ “Shit. Okay. I mean—yeah, absolutely.”

“You forgive me?”

“Yes.”

“You aren’t mad?”

“No.”

“Good. Is it still crazy?”

“Not as much,” Dan answers after a moment’s thought. “Even though…well, yeah, a little. Sometimes. Yes and no.”

Arin sticks his tongue out. “Okay, one last question, then.”

“Hit me, babe.” Dan tries out the nickname for the first time, nearly choking on it. But after seeing how Arin’s eyes widen for a fraction of a second and the crimson flush that floods his cheeks, he knows he was right to do so.

Arin stumbles a moment, but recovers quickly. “Do you still only like my eyes?”

Dan laughs as Arin bats his eyelashes. He reaches out and holds his face, rubbing Arin’s cheeks with his thumbs. “Yep,” he says. “But I also like your lips.”

 

.

.

.

 

_so you can keep me_

_inside the pocket of your ripped jeans_

_holding me closer 'til our eyes meet_

_you won't ever be alone, wait for me to come home_

 

### iii. morning dew

Dan isn’t sure how many times his fingers have acted on their own and opened up his album affectionately titled **_dumbasses in love_** 💘 and stared at the rolls of selfies in stock there. It isn’t just the picture of their first kiss anymore—they’re snippets of moments just like it, both kisses and date nights and breathtaking views when they actually leave the city. A few of them are from Arin, who evidently took snarky selfies with an oblivious Dan doing some mediocre thing in the background. He always managed to get Dan at the worst instant, but Dan never minds.

On nights like these, when Dan is alone and Arin is miles and miles away, it’s those pictures Dan takes comfort in.

 _“I’ll be back soon,”_ Arin said, kissing Dan between the eyes and then his nose and lips. _“Still got a wife, y’know?”_

 _“Of course,”_ Dan had whispered back, equally enthusiastic and, at that time, full of nothing but understanding and appreciation. He tilted his neck to the side so Arin could stroke his jawline with his thumb while he kissed the side of Dan’s chin. _“I’d kill you if you forgot Suzy.”_

Arin smiled at him, relieved. _“Text me, okay? I’ll respond whenever I can. It may not, uh, you know, be as much as usual, so—I’m sorry in advance. Is that okay?”_

_“You know it is. Keep her happy, alright?”_

_“Always.”_ Arin kissed Dan one more time before pushing a curl of hair away from his eyes. _“See you soon, Danny.”_

Now Dan lies in bed, wishing Arin wasn’t in the Caribbean, all the way across the country and then some. Every so often he has to shove away an intrusive thought, often a thread of resentment aimed at Suzy. He never lets them gain ground in his mind. He’s eternally grateful to Arin’s wife for clearing their relationship and allowing them on their periodic dates throughout the week.

Of course, she had rules, and that included the commitment Arin still had to her. Their anniversary overruled any plans they may have happened to make. Dan knew that Arin had to celebrate it—no, not had. He _wanted_ to, and Dan would’ve been uncomfortable in any other situation. Arin was not one to shy away from proud declarations of affection, and that included both Dan and Suzy. Dan knew he was an addition to, not a division of, Arin’s existing love. Nothing has changed in the way Arin feels about Suzy—at least, nothing he has noticed or heard.

Be that as it may, Arin might have taken Dan along, at least to hang out with or plan with. However, Suzy and Arin’s anniversary fell on the same week that Dan’s schedule was chock-full of Ninja Sex Party conventions and events here in California. Dan blames his bad luck, but he’s long admitted that it’s probably better off this way. He has no right to intrude on a private matter like that, no matter what Arin may say. And, anyway, Suzy is still one of his best friends, even more so now that he’s dating her husband with her approval. Dan firmly believes that he is more than pleased that Arin and Suzy can find the time to celebrate together and enjoy each other.

Yet it still hurts, right behind his heart where Dan feels deepest. But he knows he must learn to cope with it. So his phone has become his savior, where visual reminders serve as an easy way to remember their own dates. And when those pictures don’t help, Dan lets himself drift over to his messaging app. This is where he winds up a few minutes later, hesitating a long while before he actually taps the icon.

He had tried so hard to keep himself from texting Arin since he left, and he’s mostly succeeded. The only exceptions were a few texts scattered throughout the last four days, and those conversations hadn’t lasted very long. Dan had forced himself to keep it short and let Arin focus on his wife. However, as the night grows older, his self control begins to fade.

He looks at the time: 12:48. Meaning… _3:48 in the Caribbean,_ Dan calculates, biting his lip. Would Arin still be awake? Of course, but would Suzy?

Dan cringes at the thought that he might be interrupting an extremely late night session between them, something not all that uncommon considering how late they could feasibly be out partying on the streets. But his hands are itching to text, and he can do little to restrain them.

He sighs and taps on it, opening up his last conversation with Arin—the first one on the list. He holds his breath and sends out one text.

**You: you awake, big cat?**

Knowing that he probably shouldn’t expect an answer anytime soon, he closes the app and opens up YouTube. He navigates to his favorite playlist—some number of compilations a user had made, each devoted to certain types of moments on the show. Dan had always loved watching their episodes back, and often times he watched them like any other viewer would because he doesn’t seem to remember half the things he says in these videos.

He gets through three minutes of the video he opens before his phone suddenly vibrates in his hand, a new notification sliding down from the top an instant later.

 **🖕Big Cat 💕😍 (12:51 AM):** **_sure am_ **

Then, a couple seconds later, another one:

**_what are you up to babe?_ **

Dan draws his shoulders up, accidentally dropping his phone onto his face. He bites back a sound of indignation and sits up, shaking as he opens the messages. A grin of excitement splits his face in half.

 ** _oh my god Arin,_** he types. **_you scared me._**

**🖕Big Cat 💕😍 is typing…**

**🖕Big Cat 💕😍 (12:52 AM):** **_you were scared? I didn’t expect any late night texts_ **

**🖕Big Cat 💕😍 (12:52AM):** **_I almost woke Suzy up_ ** **😂🖕**

Dan licks his lips and shakes his head. **_well, I’m glad you’re here._ ** And then, after a moment’s thought: **_what have you been up to?_ **

There’s a hesitation, and for a moment Dan thinks Arin left. But his response suddenly appears without any warning.

 **🖕Big Cat 💕😍 (12:52 AM):** ** _finished some lovin about an hour ago. Suzy crashed_** **_right after_**

 **🖕Big Cat 💕😍 (12:52 AM):** **_you know how it is_ **

**🖕Big Cat 💕😍 (12:52 AM):** **_but I was really hoping you’d text_ ** **❤️**

Dan is still at first. Seems he was correct in his reasoning prior to texting Arin. The idea that he had just been fucking Suzy lights Dan’s face on fire and makes him long for Arin all the more. His texting tone is little less than whiny.

 **You:** **_of course I would text, I miss you_ **

**🖕Big Cat 💕😍 (12:53 AM):** **_awww. I miss you too baby_ **

**🖕Big Cat 💕😍 (12:53 AM):** **_I’ll be back before you know it, and then I’ll make up for it ;)_ **

Dan’s ears burn. He takes the bait. **_I wish you were here now…_ **

Arin jumps on board eagerly. **_in bed with you?_ **

**_yes,_ ** Dan responds. His hands shake with excitement, and they tremble harder with each letter.

 **🖕Big Cat 💕😍 (12:53 AM):** **_JUST in bed with you?_ **

Dan nervously giggles out loud and flips over to his stomach. The new position adds some stability to his hands, but his phone is in continuous danger of being dropped. At least now it won’t be on his face.

 **You:** **_what else is there to do?_ **

**🖕Big Cat 💕😍 (12:53 AM):** ** _well, I could be hugging you? kissing you even, God_** **_forbid_**

Dan claps a hand over his mouth to control his laughter. **_yes, I guess that’d be nice._ **

**🖕Big Cat 💕😍 (12:53 AM):** **_but we’d be naked._ **

Dan has to put his hand down and cover his face. He groans into his palm, wishing he couldn’t hear that sly, husky tone so easily. **_you’re with your wife!_ ** he scolds. **_she’s literally in bed next to you! take a break_ **

Arin takes a little more time to respond to that one. **_yeah well I still have time for you too_ **

**🖕Big Cat 💕😍 (12:54 AM):** **_cmon, just entertain the thought? pls?_ **

**_right now I only want to sleep with you,_ ** Dan replies firmly. His head still spins in an airy daze. **_nothing else for now even though I’m sure you’re a fucking beast in bed_ **

**🖕Big Cat 💕😍 (12:54 AM):** **_you can test that out any time_ ** **😉😈**

 **🖕Big Cat 💕😍 (12:54 AM):** **_(you’re right ofc)_ **

Dan makes a noise that sounds as though someone tried to wrestle a squirrel. **_okay,_ ** he agrees. **_Maybe I will._ **

**🖕Big Cat 💕😍 (12:54 AM):** **_good enough for me_ **

**🖕Big Cat 💕😍 (12:55 AM):** **_when I come home I’ll spend the night with you, Suzy’s ok with that_ **

**🖕Big Cat 💕😍 (12:55 AM):** **_and then you can fall asleep in my arms after whatever else :)_ **

Dan’s heart expands to fill his chest twice over. **_that sounds beautiful. I can’t wait_ **💘

_._

_._

_._

 

_loving can heal, loving can mend your soul_

_and it's the only thing that I know, know_

 

### iv. overcast

“Stop…Arin, that tickles!”

Arin frowns and pushes the blanket a little further underneath Dan’s chin. He refuses to budge even when Dan, giggling tiredly, pushes at his arms to try and squirm free. “You’re so fucking sick, Danny,” he sighs, worming closer to the man next to him. “How did I let you get like this?”

Dan hiccups and looks up at Arin, trying to think straight. He cannot. The codeine cycling through is veins gives everything a sugary, faraway quality, and he can only think one thing: _Arin, Arin, Arin._

“You’re so…mmm…pretty,” he says earnestly, touching Arin’s short, thick beard. “Such a _pretty…_ baby…”

Arin’s cheeks turn a pale rouge. He places a hand over Dan’s and pushes into it, kissing each of his fingers. Dan has always been susceptible to Arin’s presence, but in this drugged state, it’s like he’s made entirely of iron filings and Arin’s body is a charged magnet. When Arin kisses him, he lets out a little blissful sound and pushes his mouth harder over Arin’s. He closes his eyes and frowns when Arin breaks away. “Hey,” he rasps.

Arin slides down into the blankets, turning onto his side and supporting himself with his elbow. The corners of his eyebrows crinkle as he smiles affectionately. “Wish I was recording this right now. Barry would have a shit ton of fun editing it.”

Dan lifts himself off the bed. He tries to say something, but only an eruption of coughs comes out.

Arin’s eyes widen and he lightly coaxes Dan back down with a hand splayed on his chest. “Lay down,” he says, face just inches away from Dan’s. “Do you want anything?”

“Mmm…yeah.”

“Yeah? Water, crackers, what can I get?” Arin prepares to get up. “You want your phone? Wait, no, no, not your phone. You gotta relax.”

“You.”

“What?”

“I want _you,_ ” Dan complains. He opens and closes his hands like a toddler. “Please?”

Arin has to cover his mouth to stifle his burst of quick laughter. He carefully maneuvers himself to hover over Dan’s body, planting both of his hands on either side of Dan’s arms. Dan can feel the intense heat radiating between them, echoing off of their bodies and magnifying until all there is is a dome of warmth surrounding the heaps of blankets on top of them.

“Anytime,” Arin mumbles. He leans down to butterfly kiss Dan’s left cheek, and there is a moment of both panic and pleasure when, for an instant, Dan thinks Arin is going to crush him. But Arin stays suspended just enough to keep his weight off of the sick man. Dan finds a new appreciation for his boyfriend’s strength and reaches up, first skimming his hands over Arin’s shoulders before latching onto his neck. He tries to bend off the bed and kiss Arin’s chin; he weakly falls back with a groan.

“Hey, hey,” Arin murmurs. “I’ll come to you, okay? You just lay back for me.”

Dan shivers with the feeling his words bring. “M’kay.”

Arin shifts from butterfly kisses to real kisses and peppers Dan’s face with them, letting his lips linger on each part of Dan’s face for a couple seconds before moving onto the next. He moves across Dan’s forehead, and then back over his cheeks and nose, before finding his upper lip.

Here, Arin pauses for a much longer time. He kisses it slowly, lightly tugging on Dan’s lip with his teeth and softly sucking on it. Dan’s mouth drops open halfway to allow a strangled gasp escape. “Ar…” Dan says hoarsely. His head is beginning to clear as Arin bites a little bit harder, lending a sensation just sharp enough to bring Dan back. “Arin?”

Arin turns his head, letting his tongue ghost over Dan’s mouth before kissing down the edge of his lips and to his chin. Dan lifts his head limply from the pillow with a complaint ready.

It never gets vocalized, though, because Arin’s mouth soon finds Dan’s neck. His movements are light and confident where they touch his skin. It’s all humid warmth with a bit of teeth, not yet enough to arouse Dan but ample reason for him to moan happily. It dances on the fence of romance and sensuality, resulting in a heavenly haven of safety. Dan sighs again, biting his lip when Arin kisses his Adam’s apple, and tilts his head up to help him.

“You should get some rest,” Arin mumbles against him. “You need to sleep.”

“No,” protests Dan, shocked by how much the idea appalls him. He tugs on him meaningfully until Arin meets his eyes. “Kiss me for real first.”

“Babe, you’re gonna get me sick.”

“You already did earlier,” Dan points out. “And then a thousand more times. And I've _told_ you. It's not contagious. Just a little...mmm...lung tickles.”

“ _Lung tickles?_ God, you're really high, aren't you?" Arin chuckles. “Fine. Promise me you’ll sleep afterwards, though.”

“Only if you stay.”

Arin smirks, shaking his head but saying, “Deal. Say you promise.”

“I promise.”

The satisfaction in Arin’s eyes grow brighter as the man gets closer, descending onto Dan and then rolling onto his side. He wraps his arms around Dan to pull him along. Dan falls onto Arin’s chest and hugs his waist under the blankets, feeling Arin breathe in and out under the crook of his elbow as they come to rest.

He doesn’t move as Arin fastens his mouth around his, having long learned to relish the familiar feeling. It never gets old, though: not the way Arin marks his love in every movement, every incoherent whisper, or the new pattern their lips dance in unison.

Dan hears one comment spoken into his mouth. “Tastes like cough syrup.”

He leans back and smiles, blowing into Arin’s face. “Grape, right?” Dan teases.

Arin wrinkles his nose and darts in, fastening his teeth around Dan’s bottom lip and pulling once. A whimper unintentionally leaps from Dan’s throat as Arin mutters, “I’m giving you cherry next time.”

“I,” Dan breathes, reeling from the nip. “I…can just wear chapstick…”

Arin gives him a look that makes his already useless knees feel like jello. “Nah. I still like the flavor.”

“What a flirt.”

“But it works, doesn’t it?” Arin says. “Especially when you’re sleepy.”

Dan trembles, feeling a hand snake into his hair when Arin brings their faces together again. Somewhere further down the bed Arin crosses their legs and scoots in. Dan squeaks into the kiss when a hand suddenly grabs his butt, jerking forward and knocking their foreheads together. “Oh,” he says.

Arin snickers, but doesn’t let go. “Relax. It’s okay.” He squeezes Dan lightly, letting the man flinch into his body. “Yeah?”

“Okay,” Dan says, little more than a whisper.

Arin hums and plays with Dan’s hair, using the hand on his ass to drag them closer together. Dan’s fingers sluggishly grab at Arin’s shirt; everything seems to be shutting down. The rhythmic motions Arin takes begin to hypnotize him until he’s matching them without even realizing it. Dan stifles a yawn, cursing his exhaustion for ruining a moment.

A bit of tongue starts to break into the kiss, but eventually Arin pulls back, noticing Dan’s drowsiness. “Sleep on me,” he invites quietly, using his hands to move Dan into a more comfortable position. Arin cups the small of Dan’s back and presses Dan’s head into his chest, asking, “Is that good?”

Dan doesn’t let go of Arin’s waist. He turns his head so he can smell the pumpkin spice on Arin’s bare neck and can only spare a grunt in response. Hushed words chase him into a warm, easy slumber: “I’ll be right here.”

 

.

.

.

 

_i swear it will get easier,_

_remember that with every piece of you_

_and it's the only thing we take with us when we die_

 

### v. full moon**

He stares at the clock, tracking each small, stuttered movement of the seconds hand and dreading the inevitable knock on his door. He’s nervous to the point he feels as though he’s going to be sick, but he just can’t bring himself to call Arin and ask for a rain check.

Arin is on his way to pick Dan up and take him out to a private sit-down restaurant for their first anniversary. However, despite Dan’s previous and genuine excitement, it currently is one of the last things he wants to do. Still, no one would be pleased if he tried to cancel it, even though Arin would surely understand.

To cope, Dan curses his luck. Of all the days he could’ve had one of his rare breakdowns, it had to be today, when Dan is already dressed in a freshly cleaned and pressed tuxedo, and in very real danger of soiling his white undershirt. The fear of Arin finding him this emotional—again—isn’t as strong as his fear of ruining their special night out. His preference for his boyfriend not finding a total train wreck awaiting him behind the door, though, is quite prominent.

When the knock finally comes, his head still whirls with grievances and thoughts of condemnation and he barely hears it. He freezes, hand caught still in the air where it was traveling to try and smear his tears over his cheek. Maybe if he doesn’t answer, Arin will go away.

He’s wrong. Arin rings, this time, and Dan hears a muffled “ _Danny, I’m here!_ ”

He groans into his hands and makes a violent grab for the nearest Kleenex box, ripping out a handful and futilely trying to tidy up his face. He scrambles into the kitchen, making a beeline for the kitchen sink, where he snags a rag, soaks it in cold water, and swipes at his face with it. “Come in,” Dan shouts, attempting to dry himself up.

He hears the lock turn with the copy of his key he had given Arin (a thing he’s never regretted until now). The household fills with Arin’s lively chatter. “C’mon, baby! You ready to go? Where are you?”

Dan turns his back to the entrance of the kitchen, gripping the edge of the sink so tightly his knuckles turn white. He clenches his teeth together, hoping it would somehow stop the tears from leaking. When he hears Arin enter, he tries to straighten up, reaching for the handle to make it seem like he was washing his hands. “Hey,” he says without turning.

Arin is behind him. He can feel his warmth. “Hello, gorgeous,” Arin purrs, wrapping his arms around his waist. Dan jumps at his touch, angling his face even farther away.

Arin stops, noticing the movement. “Hey,” he repeats, kissing Dan’s neck. His voice sounds puzzled. “Danny? Love, you look beautiful. Can you look at me?”

He says it gently, encouragingly, but Dan can’t do it. It takes Arin to physically move Dan away from the counter and turn him around. There is a long, deathly silent moment where Dan can only look at the hand on his left shoulder. When he finally musters up the courage to meet Arin’s eyes, he is shocked to find the other man’s face so drained of life. It’s like a terrified ghoul is staring back at him, and Dan can’t stand to think that he is the reason why. “Arin, I am so fucking sorry,” he apologizes, “I know I’m gonna make us late but—”

“Sit down.”

Dan blinks, caught so off guard that he only asks, “Where?”

He doesn’t even fight back as Arin walks him backwards. He just trusts the man won’t lead him into a corner or a wall. Eventually the back of his knees hits what feels like a chair at his dining table, and he sits down hard, almost falling back. Arin’s hand flashes out and catches him before he loses his balance.

They sit in silence for a moment. Arin doesn’t let go of his wrist as he slowly sinks to his knees in front of Dan’s legs. His eyes never leave Dan’s face, even as he shifts and puts his weight on Dan’s thighs as if preventing the man from escaping. Dan shivers and tries unsuccessfully to calm his pulse because he’s about to cry again and he really, really doesn’t want to. “Arin,” he says once, and then he lapses into a cold quiet.

Arin’s fingers strangle his hands. “Who hurt you?” he demands. He sounds tender, but Dan has learned to ascertain when Arin’s words are sealed with only the thinnest of layers of self control because the frothing mixture of rage and hurt is threatening to break him at the seams. It’s quiet, it’s powerful, it touches Dan in a way that takes his breath away. It’s the same thing he had said, too, a year and some weeks ago, that stole his heart forever.

Nothing has changed about the way Arin protects him. Nothing will. Dan feels Arin’s fingers stretching over his palms, slipping into his sleeves and tracing over his wrists. Checking for scars.

“No one,” Dan answers. And then: “Everyone. I don’t know.”

Arin moves his fingers back down once he’s satisfied and squeezes Dan’s hands. Relief has spread through his face, making him look a little less intimidating. He straightens to a squat and says, “You were crying. How long were you crying?” His face twitches, and a tell-tale tear wells up in the corner of Arin’s eye.

Dan sucks in a deep breath and lets it out slowly, and then all at once. He grips Arin, a nonverbal plea for him to hold Dan tighter, which Arin obeys in a second. “God, I don’t know,” Dan admits. He looks away when he finds he can’t hold Arin’s eyes for very long. “Half an hour? Maybe longer? I—I…shit, I don’t know…”

A look of distress tightens Arin’s face. He sighs shakily and moves in, letting go of Dan’s hands and gathering up his legs with one arm. Dan releases a startled sound, instinctively lunging to grab at Arin’s shoulders as the other man turns him in his seat and starts to pull at him. “Hold on to me, baby,” Arin mumbles, and Dan does.

With a grunt and a powerful heave, Arin scoops Dan into the air and cradles him against his chest. Dan doesn’t say a word, simply stumbling in the fact that this is the first time Arin has ever carried him. He is afraid to move as Arin lurches towards the living room; he feels the muscles in Arin’s shoulders and neck rippling under his hands, and Dan is lulled into a neutral sense of awe.

Arin reaches the nearest sofa and sits down with Dan still in his arms. He lets Dan slip down against the armrest, but not entirely, so that they end up in a position where Arin is half holding him and half on top of him. “Tell me what happened,” he whispers.

Dan nods, closing his eyes and letting one hand wander the collar of Arin’s shirt. It tries to smoothen the wrinkles his body has made. “I know I’m supposed to have developed…uh, callouses, right, against this sort of thing. A-and I have, I swear, but…” Dan swallows hard and makes himself say, “It’s the hate. All—all the people—all those people who say I can’t, that I shouldn’t, that I—I’m _awful_ a-and—Arin, I promise I don’t listen, it’s just.”

He stops and takes a shuddering breath when he realizes he’s about to start hiccuping and sniveling all over again. Arin patiently waits for him to continue.

“God, you know, it really got to me, I think, and it makes you _really_ wonder, like: _what if they’re right?_ What if—what if I can’t—” Dan stops talking because a sob inserts itself in place of his words, and he’s helpless against its insistence.

Arin gathers him up and holds him tightly, rocking him like a mother and her child. “They aren’t right,” he mumbles, getting a mouthful of Dan’s hair. He moves his chin and props it up on Dan’s head, folding his arms around his back and neck. “They’re so fucking far from right. I know how you feel. I’ve felt it too—they make you doubt your own talent, don’t they?”

Dan wheezes and sniffs, discovering he cannot breathe through his nose anymore. He nods against Arin and opens his eyes and gets sad all over again when he notices that the front of both their shirts aren’t nearly as pristine as they once were.

“You can’t be strong forever.” Arin lifts Dan up just enough to swing his own legs up onto the couch and flip Dan onto his own chest. He leans against the armrest and grabs one of Dan’s ankles, bringing it over his own thigh and around his waist so that Dan’s leg encircles his hips. After a moment, Dan does the same with his other leg and hugs Arin with all he has. The cocoon that embraces him begins to settle his nerves.

“Everyone cries sometimes. It’s okay. No one’s gonna blame you. But please, for me—you gotta remind yourself that there’s always gonna be someone who just hates you. And that’s natural. You can please the ones who matter, but no one can please the world. Besides, those are the ones that don’t deserve you, then, in that case, so who cares? Gods like you don't have to interact with scum, right?”

Dan laughs despite himself and coughs away from Arin. “Shit, that's a little generous, Ar…”

“Nah, love.”Arin slides his finger under Dan’s chin and lifts his face up, smiling radiantly. “Because _I_ think that nobody else in the world sings as great as you do. Suzy thinks that, too, Brian, and Ross, and Ryan, and all the people at the office and all the people who know you. Like, really know you. And we’re the ones who matter, right?”

Dan swallows and nods. “Yeah.”

“You wanna know something, Dan?”

“What?” Dan whispers, bending his back into the hand snaking under his shirt and resting in the middle of his bony spine.

Arin pulls his head back and holds Dan’s neck protectively, letting his thumb sweep over Dan’s throat. Dan lets his eyes flutter closed as Arin leans forward again, close enough for their lips to brush against each other’s as he says, “You’re really beautiful when you sing.”

A grateful smile steals across Dan’s face. He curls into Arin, hugs his shoulders and clamps his legs around his hips like a brace. Arin’s hand finds its place in his hair and against his back as custom, bodies fitting together like the puzzle they have formed all on their own. They remain for a while, not saying anything and simply soaking in each other’s company. Every so often Arin breaks the stillness to kiss Dan’s cheek or neck and whisper sweet nothings into his still-tear-soaked skin. Dan hears them all and locks them away in his heart that thrums faster with each word.

This is the hallmark of Arin, the reason it was so easy to fall into such a steady, wonderful relationship with this man. Of course, another factor was their previously existing friendship that brought them so close. But even so, Arin has always been so quick to comfort him. He always seemed to know just what to say. He does it even now, as he rubs Dan’s back. “You know, you’ve grown a lot,” he muses faintly.

Dan shifts his head to hear Arin more clearly. “What do you mean?”

“Well,” says Arin, “you weren’t nearly as strong as you are now when you were younger, right? I mean—like, I know you’ve heard this, but. You’re so much better now. You’re growing. And it’s been easier, right? To ignore them?”

“Sure,” says Dan with a moment’s thought.

“And that’s just the great thing. It’s gonna keep getting easier, for as long as you wanna sing and perform because—because there are people who _love_ you, Dan, who really fucking love you.” Arin massages his shoulder and drops into a soft, sincere voice. “You’ve really touched people’s lives, you know that?”

Dan shrugs and says dismissively, “Oh, everyone says that.”

“And you believe them, right?”

“I mean…”

“Oh, come _on,_ Danny!” Arin’s words are direct, but the way they are said promises Dan they’re only for exaggerated effect. “No, seriously. I bet you’ve made at _least_ twenty-five people smile, right? Is that a reasonable number?”

Dan laughs. Strange, how easily Arin got him to smile. “I suppose.”

“You’ve _saved lives,_ Dan. Believe me. You make us better. The number of lives you have bettered rather than worsened is a _ridiculously_ unfair ratio.” Arin pauses, and then admits, “You know, you’ve saved my life, too.”

Dan sits back, startled. “Wh—what? Arin—”

Arin waves him off, smiling lopsidedly. “No, no, that’s not a conversation we’re gonna have now. It’s not, like, I would have _literally_ died if I hadn’t met you. Or, well, maybe I would’ve, but—”

“Arin, that’s _not_ helping your case.”

“My _point_ is,” Arin says deliberately, “you have made your fucking mark on this goddamn world, and _no one_ would be the same without it. You _belong_ on that stage, and you _deserve_ every word of praise you receive. And if you don’t believe that, I will—well, how about this, I will pin you against the wall and kiss you for every single time you say you don’t.”

Dan raises a brow. “You realize that’ll only make me want to deny it more, right?” Still, Arin’s words feel like a homey drink of hot chocolate on a cold winter’s day, spreading through him and convincing his tense muscles to relax. He falls back against Arin and hugs him tightly, wondering what on Earth he would ever do without this man. “Thank you,” he murmurs. “I—I do believe you.”

“Good. You know I mean everything I say to you.”

“I know.”

Once again, they fall silent, but this time the silence is serene. Dan’s face has dried of its tears, and the usual feeling of fatigue after a breakdown sets in. It is more pronounced than normal, emphasized by the calmness Arin’s presence represents. He remembers the days of his youth, when he cried into his mother’s shoulder and fell asleep as she sang him a lullaby. Though he would never directly ask Arin for a lullaby in a million years, he finds that his memory distorts the distinction between Arin and his mother as he grows more and more placid.

Dan hasn’t been in this sort of mild state in a long, long time, and he’s afraid of breaking it because he isn’t sure of when he’ll be able to visit it again. But he knows they have things to do that night, things to celebrate, and after perhaps five minutes pass, he asks, “Arin?”

“Mhm?”

“Are we…” Dan clears his throat of residual mucus. “Are we still going out to dinner? Because…God, our shirts, _fuck_ …”

Arin releases Dan, allowing an uncomfortable draft of air access to the places of warmth where his hands on Dan had just been. He looks down at himself, and then at the other, and laughs when he sees how dirty and mussed their suits have gotten. “Yeah, but I think I’ll cancel our reservations,” he answers, unbuttoning his tux jacket and shrugging it off before moving onto his tie. Dan watches his fingers move for a few seconds before flicking his gaze back up to Arin, surprised at the heat it stirs within him. “We can go somewhere more low-key. Unless—you still want a big first anniversary dinner?”

“I don’t care as long as I’m with you,” says Dan, reddening. “Sooner we eat, sooner we get back, and…”

Arin pauses and looks up from his loosened tie. He studies Dan for a few seconds before grinning and grabbing his face, dragging him in for a long, lingering kiss. “Well,” he murmurs, working Dan’s own jacket off, “I think, just this once, dinner will wait for us for as long as we want.”

 

.

.

.

 

_we keep this love in a photograph_

_we made these memories for ourselves_

_where our eyes are never closing_

_hearts are never broken_

_and time's forever frozen still_

 

### vi. sunhigh

The room’s atmosphere is electric with excited activity and chatter. People mill around, dressed in formal wear as they cup wine glasses between their fingers and flash smiles at their peers—specifically, Dan and Brian, the proud party hosts.

Dan laughs at the jokes the guests bring him and thank him for their congratulations before they turn to his business partner. But every so often Arin periodically comes up to join him, taking his hand and embarrassing Dan with his shameless fountain of compliments. Nobody can quite match his boyfriend in raw praise.

Everyone enjoys the stories Arin shares, always enjoys striking up a conversation with him after acknowledging Dan’s and Brian’s success. Sometimes, different guests carry completely separate exchanges with Dan and Arin, and a few times Dan hears a muted outburst of laughter followed by a quick kiss on his cheek. Every time that happens, Dan looks at Arin, bewildered, and it takes him a few seconds to realize that his name must have come up in a comedic tale.

Eventually everyone gets situated and the refreshments draw the attention of all, giving Dan and Brian a little peace. Arin looks at Dan as the singer relaxes.

He sighs and runs a hand through his tightly curled hair as he muses, “I’m beginning to wonder if a formal party was really necessary.”

“Are you kidding? The album was a hit!” Arin exclaims. “You got mad talent, babe.”

Dan bites his lip and grins. He nods at Brian when he mentions that he’s going to go off to find his daughter. “Thanks, Big Cat,” he replies, briefly touching foreheads with the man. “You helped a lot, too. So like, don’t count yourself out.”

“Wouldn’t think of it. Besides…” Arin leans in coyly, chuckling in Dan’s ear, “You promised to repay me during the afterparty, now, didn’t you?” He reaches around Dan and playfully thumbs underneath his belt, causing the taller man to jump back and slap his arm.

“Arin!” Dan protests, failing to hide his laughter and expression. “When—when did I promise that?”

“Just now.”

“Okay, well—” He steps away and shakes his head. “Swear you won’t try to molest me in front of everyone, and…and, sure. Sure. Are you, uh—are you staying over?” Dan clears his throat, rubbing the back of his neck.

Arin grabs his wrist and exaggerates a hand shake. His eyes glint deviously. “I swear on my life not to molest you in front of everyone. And, duh, of course.”

Dan moistens his lips and inhales. “Lovely. And thank you.”

“I’m gonna go get Suzy for a bit, alright?” Arin asks a moment later. “I think she’s with Ross and Matt.”

Dan’s heart sinks a little, but he nods in agreement anyway. “Alright.”

 

* * *

 

The Grumps wind up at their table in the middle of the rest, with friends and family surrounding. Dan sits between Arin and Brian; Suzy sits beside her husband. Barry and Holly, who each returned for this occasion and to see Ross, respectively, are near Ross, Matt, and Ryan. On Brian’s right is his family. Scattered among other tables are Vernon, Brent, and Jack—Dan heard Kevin had wound up attending, but he had yet to see the former Grump editor.

Ecstasy fills Dan as he looks around the room, soaking in the success. Normally NSP album releases would simply be celebrated with wild parties hilariously ruined by gaming guests half-drunk on champagne. However, he and Brian had decided to try something new this time. Dan knows the afterparty would stick true to tradition, and that even this main party might wind up like that. Still, he thought it was fitting, considering how quickly their newest album sold out.

It hit higher on the Billboard charts than their previous six albums, and the ratings blasted through the roof. And with Arin celebrating with him, their hands laced together on the table, Dan knows he’s living one of the best seasons of his life. Maybe even his golden age, if you will.

Their table transitions from one topic to another, mostly circulating around either Dan or Brian. They laugh at stories of how they came up with their songs and titles, eventually even the relationship between Dan and Arin. When the focus began shifting from music to dating, Arin’s hand had drifted to Dan’s thigh where it protectively remained for the remainder of the discussion. He also moved noticeably closer to the singer, and though near everyone in the room already knew of their relationship, Dan’s face grew hot on a relatively consistent basis. Suzy enjoyed her own share of supportive compliments from their friends and Arin alike. She was a good sport, keeping the light on the men but not being shy about sharing her own steady love for her husband.

The music begins playing, inviting guests to trickle onto the dance floor one by one. Holly and Ross are the first to leave for a nostalgic slow dance—Dan smiles at this, knowing their relationship is a bittersweet but progressive kind of love. They look at peace with each other, content enough, and privately Dan wonders if he could ever be that comfortable around an ex of that magnitude.

Sometime near the end of the first song, Arin nudges Dan and says, “Suzy and I are gonna go dance. You okay here?”

“Of course,” Dan replies automatically. “You want me to record?”

“Nah. I’ve got plenty of other better dances on my phone.” Arin claps a hand on Dan’s shoulder and stands, pulling Suzy up with him. She smiles and slips her smaller hand into his, but Dan doesn’t miss the quick glance she gives him. It’s too fast for him to entirely decode, though he’s sure it wasn’t ill-intended. Or intentional at all, for that matter.

Suzy’s eyes are fixed on Arin’s cheek soon enough, and Arin bends down to kiss her forehead. “It’s your favorite song,” he says, “right, honey?” And then they’re gone.

A twinge of pain stabs at him, bringing a little tear to his right eye. Dan wipes it away quickly and turns away to search for a new focus. To his horror, Brian is staring at him, evidently having caught his blunder. “You okay?” he asks. His eyes narrow slightly, in a way more inquisitive than hostile.

Dan clears his throat and nods. His fingers find their way towards the edge of his empty plate, where they fidget the whole time Brian keeps his eyes fixed on him. “Yeah, man, I’m having a great time. I, uh, just gotta—”

“Dan,” says Brian. His voice is troubled.

Dan shakes his head and stands, still holding his plate. He forces watts of energy to charge his voice, hoping to sound more convincing. “Seriously, it’s okay. I know what I signed up for,” he insists. “He’s got a wife, and I’m lucky to even be dating him. I don’t care.”

Brian opens his mouth, the blatant lie clearly not lost on him. But he remains silent until he finally shrugs and says, “If you’re sure.” He looks across the table and tunes into a new conversation, a gesture of polite dismissal.

Dan blows a stray wisp of hair out of his face and backs away from the table. He does his best not to look at the dance floor and instead remember what Arin had told him earlier, those promises of what would happen that night.

His restraint breaks when he’s halfway to the long table filled with half-empty trays of food and his eyes are pulled to the wide space in the room occupied by twirling couples. His feet stop moving and he finds himself looking for Arin, for that glimpse of long, blonde-streaked brown hair. He spots it a second later, along with the tender look the man is giving Suzy.

In an instant Dan is locking down, barring his thoughts and turning away and tightly closing his eyes. He begins reciting the mantra he has created for times just like these, where the envious man he so desperately wants to avoid becoming threatens to overcome him.

_Suzy is his. Arin is Suzy’s. His life is not my life, and I am not Suzy. Suzy is his. Arin is Suzy’s. His life is not…_

By some miracle, Dan is able to fill his plate with some airy pastries and make it all the way back to his seat without losing his composure. When he sits back down the Grumps, he risks a look back at the dance floor, only to find that Arin and Suzy are nowhere to be found.

His bow creases and he straightens, looking around in confusion. Yes, there Suzy is, talking to her siblings at another table. But her husband isn’t there.

Dan twists to the side before sinking into his chair, a deep frown etched into his face. He dissociates to the point that when fingers brush over his shoulders and across his chest to lock around his collar, he almost shoots five feet into the air. “Looking for me?” Arin mumbles. His beard tickles Dan’s ear.

Dan gasps and turns, almost colliding with Arin’s head. “Arin, don’t do that! Fuck you!” He shoves Arin away and laughs breathlessly. “ _Yes,_ I _was._ ”

Arin smiles and comes around the chair. He offers his arm and leans in. “Dan,” he questions, “may I have this dance?”

Dan stares at him the whole time it takes him to realize a new song is playing. Familiar guitar chords ring through the speakers, indicating the start of this piece. He recognizes it immediately. “Oh, Ed Sheeran,” he says. He reaches out and loops his arm through Arin’s. “I would be…delighted.”

Arin’s eyes wrinkle around the edges with his joy. They walk towards the dance floor, each step leaving Dan slightly weaker than the last. Suzy catches his eye at the last moment, and when Dan reluctantly looks over at her, he finds that she’s waving at him with a huge, encouraging smile. Guilt floods through him when he sees how happy she is for them. All at once he wants to run over to her and fall to his knees and beg for her forgiveness for something she doesn’t know he’s done, something he hasn’t done, something he hopes he will never do. But Arin’s voice pulls him back, and Dan decides to file the regret away for later.

“Put your arms around me,” Arin tells him, pulling him out onto the floor.

“I know how to slow dance, Ar,” Dan chuckles. “You don’t have to teach me.” He holds Arin’s shoulder with one hand and places his other in Arin’s, shuddering when the other man grips his hip.

“Well, what if I want to?”

They’re moving now, swaying with the beginning of the song. It takes next to no time at all for their footsteps to fall into a steady pattern. As the position becomes more comfortable, Dan relaxes with the familiarity he didn’t know they had. Arin stares at him from a few inches away. “What if I want to show you how to dance with me specifically?”

Dan chuckles through his nose. “I guess that’s fine.”

Ed begins singing, and Dan closes his eyes, letting the singer’s voice guide his movement. Their stance seems much too traditional and common for this moment; Dan takes his hand out of Arin’s and whispers, “Just hold me. Please?”

“See? You do want me to teach you.”

Arin drops his arms and Dan raises his, curving them around Arin’s neck as Arin places his around Dan’s waist. He only settles when he feels Arin’s breath on his face.

Their eyes never leave each other, and Dan realizes, startled, that he has never taken the time to truly get lost in Arin’s eyes. He’s looked at them many times, yes, he’s been caught breathless by his rich, intensely amber gaze, but he’s never set aside time to just _stare._ Without anything to distract him.

Dan is dimly aware of his mouth opening slightly as he begins to hear less and less of the people surrounding them. His vision tunnels, making Arin’s face the central target of his focus. A tender expression has smoothed his features. “Remember back on our first date,” he says, “when you said you loved my eyes?”

Dan wraps his arms tighter around Arin as the younger man pulls him closer against his chest. He plays with a curl on the nape of Arin’s neck, smirking a little when Arin’s eyes flutter momentarily. “Mhm. I still do. More, now, actually.”

“Well, I don’t think I’ve ever returned the compliment.” Arin lifts one hand to place his fingers against the top of Dan’s face and affectionately brushes his thumb over the scar across his eyebrow. Dan’s breath hitches in his throat. He wonders why this movement seems so much more intimate than any kiss Arin has ever given him. “You’ve got _gorgeous_ eyes, Dan.”

The first chorus flows in softly around them, encasing them in a bubble of serenity all to themselves. Dan doesn’t know how to answer him, at least not with words, so he elects to shake his head and drop his forehead onto Arin’s. Arin makes a little cooing sound that rumbles behind his tongue and lifts his face, lips touching but not quite a kiss yet. They share the same space, the same oxygen, and it’s like time temporarily freezes just for them. Dan can hear the song in the distance, but Arin’s heartbeat is so much louder.

His hand is still on Dan’s face. Now it moves to cup his chin and part his jaw. They breathe against each other for a few more seconds before Arin goes in all the way and ensnares him in one of the most surreal kisses Dan has ever found himself in, with Arin or with anyone.

It's the kind of kiss everyone wants to be their first, peaceful and quiet and all but perfect. A moment outside the bounds of time, caught and dragged down to Earth as an experience that would bring a mortal as close as they could possibly be to heaven. Dan loses track of everything else until Arin breaks away.

They never let distance separate them, though. They continue to dance, and Dan settles for putting his head on Arin's shoulder and enjoying the basic feeling of thoroughly falling in love. It feels much like letting go of something, Dan reflects, something you've relied on for all your life. And that is where the trust comes in, trust that the person will catch the heart you offer to them. If this is the way love works, then, Dan discovers that he must never have truly been in love with anyone. So what kind of luck has he been blessed with that the one time he does fall, he is caught and held like this?

Arin will always catch him. Dan knows it. And as they dance—the best part is that Dan doesn't even remember where they are—Dan makes a promise in his head that he, too, musn't ever let Arin fall on his own. He swears he will never let Arin's heart break because of him, never let it hit the ground without trying to catch it. That every memory they make will never be one either of them regrets. And it's a risky promise, maybe even an unrealistic one, but for Arin?

Dan would cheat the jaws of death for him.

When he opens his eyes—he never recalled closing them—he discovers that the bubble must have popped, because he can hear everything again. It’s significantly quieter than the beginning of the dance, but maybe it’s just because of them. The song is almost over, though it feels like it’s been playing for lifetime.

They’re still moving, albeit rather slowly, turning in a very gradual circle more than anything else. Out of the corner of Dan’s eyes he can see people watching, recording, even crying. He isn’t sure why until he sees the look Arin’s giving him. When he says “I love you,” Dan almost doesn’t hear him because he’s on the verge of sobbing, himself. But the words still reach him, echoing in his ears and reverberating through the corridors of his body before blooming like the first rose of spring in his heart.

“I love you, too,” Dan says, and it’s the most genuine thing he’s ever said in his life.

 

.

.

.

 

_so you can keep me_

_inside the pocket of your ripped jeans_

_holding me closer 'til our eyes meet_

_you won't ever be alone_

 

### vii. evening

“You know, you’re the only person besides Suzy I would ever watch a rom-com with,” Arin murmurs into Dan’s ear, nosing through his curls affectionately. Dan grins, closing his eyes halfway and leaning into Arin while he taps various buttons on the remote to start up the movie. “And even then, I’m really on the fucking fence about whether or not I should let you play this.”

Dan reaches out with his other hand and finds Arin’s chin to pull him in and steal a kiss. He smiles and promises, “I’ll get the popcorn right now. Would that make you feel better, you big dumb baby?”

“Maybe. But I’m gonna get _cold,_ ” Arin complains. He hugs Dan for emphasis and almost knocks the remote out of his hand.

Dan laughs and puts the device down after pressing play. He lets Arin kiss and nibble at his neck for a few seconds before gently pushing him away to stand. “Just give me a sec. You, uh, you like kettle, right?”

“Surprise me.”

“So regular butter, then,” Dan jokes, walking around the couch to the kitchen.

Arin turns in his seat and pops up behind the back of the couch. “Yes, kettle, you dickhead,” he retorts, leaning forward on his elbows. “Enough for both of us.”

“Like I would only get a bowl for you.” Dan reaches into a cupboard for a bowl and then rifles through his pantry for the popcorn box. “I love you, but not that much. I don’t think I love _anyone_ that much.”

“Food before dudes, yeah?” Arin laughs.

“Yep. Snacks before ass.”

Arin bursts into his famous trademark bout of laughter, and Dan allows himself a deeply pleased grin. These moments, where he succeeded in inciting such an exaggerated reaction from his boyfriend, still gifts him with powerful rushes of elation.

A few minutes later, after delivering the popcorn and beers and squirming around to fit their bodies together on the sofa, Dan lies comfortably against Arin’s chest with his head propped up on the larger man’s shoulder. Arin’s upper arm is slung around his hips and the other one wraps around his head to twist his hand into Dan’s hair. Every once and a while Dan reaches out to the nearby coffee table to grab a handful of popcorn, first giving himself some and then offering a second handful to Arin behind him. He tries to hide his shiver and proceeding giggle when Arin’s tongue scrapes over his palm to look for any stray kernel to lap up. “You taste so sweet,” Arin mumbles once, noticing how much Dan clearly enjoys it.

The movie begins and manages to hang onto their focus for a grand total of no more than thirty minutes. Arin makes the occasional smartass comment here and there, adding on for comedic value and looking very happy himself whenever he makes Dan laugh—which is often, if not always. There’s an especially sappy part where Arin gags _horrifically_ and drones on about the flawed, cliche plot until Dan slaps his hand in hysterics.

Eventually, though, despite Dan’s presence, Arin evidently starts to bore. His hands begin roaming, and Dan flinches when he feels a few fingers slip under the flexible waistband of his sweatpants. “Ar—”

“Sh-sh.” Arin silences him smoothly with a long, hot kiss against Dan’s neck. A hand snakes into his shirt, and Dan’s entire body shudders violently. A quick gasp jumps forth from his mouth, startled both at Arin’s movement and his own reaction.

Dan pulls his hands into his chest and looks over his shoulder, trying to meet Arin’s eyes. “Enjoying the movie?” he asks innocently. His breath skips when Arin finds his ribs and begins lightly stroking the outline of bone against skin with his nails. “Ah…”

“You can keep watching,” Arin mumbles, pulling at the hem of Dan’s pants. “I’m just entertaining myself.”

“U-huh.” Dan tries to ignore Arin’s invasive touch, a feat nigh impossible considering how much he thirsts for it. They’ve fucked enough that Dan, of course, knows where this is going, but not enough that simple foreplay like this won’t get him easily riled up. Blood surges into his face on overtime, and he doesn’t dare move when Arin’s ministrations tug his shirt farther up his torso.

A little whimper trails out between his clenched teeth when he feels Arin bite and suck on his neck just beneath his jawline. The skin there is vulnerable, extraordinarily sensitive, and the sound Dan is making only continues to get higher in pitch as Arin’s hand slips lower under his pants and paws at his thigh.

A bead of sweat marks its way down the side of Arin’s forehead. Somehow this time feels more sensual in nature, simply because of how casual yet erotic Arin’s gradual movements are. Arin spends his sweet time on the hickey, sucking harder until Dan’s body jolts forward and he lets out a shallow breath of pain. Upon hearing that, Arin chuckles and shifts, leaving the mark to purple while he moves somewhere else.

The heat in Dan’s face drains through the rest of his body until it circulates in a simmering pool in his gut. His arousal rears its fiery head and kicks its nerves into overdrive, wheedling a sharp gasp out of him when Arin’s hand squeezes his leg. “Arin,” Dan mutters, biting his lip.

Even without seeing his face full on, Dan can sense Arin smiling devilishly against Dan’s chin. “Yeah? You want something, baby?” he says, sickly sweet.

Dan gulps and doesn’t answer until the fingers of Arin’s other hand abruptly dig into the skin of his abdomen. “I asked you something,” Arin says, raising his voice over Dan’s loud gasp, “and it wasn’t rhetorical.”

Arin’s hand slips lower and lower into Dan’s inner thigh until he’s practically holding Dan’s leg up. A groan from Dan praises his endeavors. “Maybe,” Dan breathes. “I think you gotta convince me, though.”

“I could do that.”

And then Arin’s hand is snaking all the way up his chest and stroking his collarbone and—

“A-ah,” Dan whimpers, curling away from the electric fingers that pinch one of his nipples. “O-okay, Arin…”

“You fucking like that, don’t you?” Arin’s voice is deep and sultry right into his ear. His tongue flicks out to toy with Dan’s earlobe, and he pinches harder. Dan twists, crying out, remedied only when Arin presses a single kiss against the corner of his lip.

Dan moans a _yeah_ and tries to turn for a full kiss. Arin takes advantage of this and uses his momentum to completely flip Dan onto his back, slam him against the armrest, and straddle him at the hips. “Yeah, you like it rough,” he growls, carding a hand through Dan’s thick hair. “Isn’t that right?”

Dan’s head lifts as he swallows again. He watches Arin’s eyes track the movement of his throat with an almost greedy look. “Fucking—shut up and kiss me,” he complains.

“Your wish is my command.”

Spittle flies from Dan’s lips as he can’t help but laugh hard at Arin’s reference, remembering all too clearly the day he read fanfiction during a Sonic Unleashed recording. But the memory is tossed to the back of his mind when Arin bends over and, indeed, kisses him amorously.

Dan responds instantly, reaching up and locking his arms around Arin’s neck. He gladly surrenders control to the swift tide of desire that yanks him along within the first touch of Arin’s mouth. Every time he and his boyfriend have had sex, Dan has been acutely aware that he’s never experienced a partner in quite the same unique, mind-blowing way he’s had Arin. And maybe it’s because Arin is the first—and, if things go right, the _only_ —man he’s ever been with.

But he's sure it's also because he knows Arin so much better than anyone he’s ever met, _loves_ Arin more than anyone he’s ever fallen for. It’s times like these where Dan thirsts for the exotic. He knows, too, that if by some extraordinarily unfortunate stroke of fate, they broke up, he would never settle for anything or anyone else again.

Another factor is how powerless Arin makes him feel. It’s a good kind of powerless, a sort of submission that Dan discovered he thirsts for during the first time they had sex. Arin has exploited that weakness every time since, and now is no exception.

Dan groans into the deepening kiss as Arin eagerly grinds against him. His hands lift Dan off the couch and closer into him, where the friction burns greatest. Their teeth clash in the frenzy until Arin finds a better pastime: he sucks at Dan’s lips hungrily, his aggression growing in intensity with each shared moan.

They pause only to help each other out of their shirts and throw them to the side. As soon as the extra layer of fabric is gone, Dan arches up, groaning as their bare bodies collide. He’s long grown familiar to the extreme kind of heat that rolls off of Arin’s thick figure and now finds it as a source of addiction.

He tilts his head back and gasps as Arin squeezes his ass and pulls at his hair to bite his neck. “Arin, _fuck,_ ” he chokes, scrambling to find purchase when Arin sucks generously beneath his chin. “Not so hard—”

“You know I’d never hurt you,” Arin chuckles. He drags his teeth up Dan’s skin and kisses him before smiling down at him, a bonafide Cheshire Cat leer that makes Dan bite his lip and blush.

“Well, sometimes I forget.”

“I like that.” Arin’s hand slides down between their bodies, excruciatingly slow and tantalizing and all the things that keep Dan up at night, figuratively and literally. “That I can make you _forget_.”

“I bet you do— _ah,_ shit!” Dan’s nails drag a few harsh lines down Arin’s back when the other man’s hand slips under his pants and grabs his twitching dick. He forgets it momentarily, though, when Arin’s face twists in a wince of pain, and he leaps to apologize. “Oh, God, sorry, I—”

“No, no,” Arin interrupts. “Love that, too. Besides…” He leans in and takes a fist of Dan’s hair, laughing lowly at the whimper that follows. “I’m going,” he murmurs, “to make you scream.”

Dan draws in a ragged breath and releases it in a long, slow moan as Arin moves down his body and swipes his tongue around his stone-still nipple. His hand still tugs at Dan’s dick and begins to fall into a hypnotic rhythm, up and down and up and down. The hand in his hair sidles all the way down his body to possessively hug Dan’s hips, and while it remains there, his fingers distract themselves by massaging the skin they touch.

When Arin finally starts pulling Dan’s pants down, Dan’s chest heaves with the breath it takes to control himself. They never break, not even when Dan is left nearly naked as Arin goes to match him. This is routine, now, a crazy, passionate, beautiful routine that is always different each time. Usually it’s Arin who decides on the new element, and Dan always looks forward to the surprise it brings.

He shivers as Arin all but tears his boxers off, nibbling on his pronounced hipbones all the while. He pushes his head into the armrest and moans; he has to grasp ample handfuls of the sofa cover to steady himself now that Arin has moved out of reach. “Please,” Dan whispers, feeling Arin’s breath wash over him. “Oh, God, Arin…”

“Mhm…” Arin’s tongue flicks out and draws one line from head to base. It almost dislodges when Dan’s entire body convulses with the soundless scream it pulls from him. “ _Fuck,_ you’re hard. Not doing nearly as well as usual, eh?”

“Cause you’re teasing,” Dan complains. He clenches his teeth when Arin licks him again. “ _Please—_ ” He tries to thrust forward and lets out a frustrated noise as Arin yanks his hips back down against the sofa.

Arin peers at him with a malicious glare. “I set the rules, remember, baby?” He moves back up to kiss his nose teasingly and grins, “But I think you’ll like what we do tonight.”

“What are we—” Dan suddenly finds it quite hard to talk around the fingers Arin inserts into his mouth, pressing down on his tongue and lazily moving in and out. His lips close around them automatically despite them never having done this.

Eyes wide, Dan discovers how absolutely _filthy_ the action makes him feel. It’s the kind of filthy that excites him, floods his veins with shots of straight liquor, coaxes him into sucking slavishly around Arin’s digits. He maintains eye contact with Arin the whole time and grows hot when he watches Arin’s expression slowly morph into a sort of transfixed desire. He hears Arin’s breath start to fall heavy, even catches the soft “Fuck yeah, Danny, that’s _hot,_ ” that precedes Arin pushing his fingers in a little deeper.

Dan swallows and blinks furiously, breathing deeply through his nostrils. “Keep sucking, Dan,” Arin says roughly. “Get them nice and wet.”

Dan moans and obeys. He slips his tongue between the gaps between Arin’s fingers, making room for the third Arin adds. Somehow this is better than anything they’ve ever done, with the way Arin takes control of his face and holds his neck tightly with his other hand. Sweat glitters on both their bodies, reflecting the light of the movie long ignored.

Arin pops his fingers out of Dan’s mouth a few moments later and licks them clean, winking when Dan tightly purses his lips. “Now close your eyes, babe,” Arin advises as he moves back down.

“But I wanna see you,” says Dan, propping himself up on his elbows.

“Mm-mm. Down.” Arin lunges up and quite literally shoves Dan down. His hand doesn’t abandon his chest, even as Arin studies him and decides, “Unless you like me right here. You do, huh?”

Dan makes a sound of agreement. It becomes a sharp gasp a moment later, when Arin calmly reaches under his dick and slips two fingers into Dan’s asshole. His body lurches forward, as it always does, at the initial shock. He’s thankful for the pressure Arin’s hand provides, as it now acts as a sort of anchor.

He groans softly as Arin slowly fucks him with his fingers. Eventually Arin leans back and down towards his hips, favoring Dan’s erection over his chest. Dan doesn’t move to follow him with his eyes, as it’s already hard enough to stay focused with the sloped waves of pleasure wracking his body. It intensifies soon enough: Arin’s second hand dances over his dick, teasing him for ten seconds of hell, before _finally_ wrapping around him. Dan is relieved when Arin allows him to thrust forward into his hand at his own leisure, and soon enough he’s loudly moaning Arin’s name.

“You always sound so fucking good, Danny,” Arin laughs. He jerks Dan harder, groaning at the resulting cries.

“Oh, God, Arin, more,” Dan begs. His hands fly above his head to clutch madly at the armrest, and he wails when Arin begins to fuck him faster with his third finger. His hips roll wildly, and Arin soon has to hold him down again. “Arin—fuck, _a-h…_ ”

Electricity runs through his blood, filling him with a delicious, magenta heat that materializes as a thick bead of precum on the tip of his cock when Arin finds his prostate. Dan actually screams but bites down on his tongue to silence himself.

“No, I wanna hear you.” Arin pops the first inch of Dan into his mouth and swirls his tongue around his head, lapping up the milky drop. Dan’s entire body is pulled like a magnet to Arin’s mouth, nearly splitting him in half. “I wanna fucking hear you scream my name, Dan.”

Dan lifts his chin up and gasps for breath. “Ah—okay,” he groans. “But you gotta— _ngh_ … _harder_ …”

“Oh, I know what you want.”

And then Arin leaves him, just as he begins to climb that peak. Dan sits up, staring at him with his mouth wide open. “You can’t just—! What are you doing?”

Arin doesn’t answer him, just hungrily collects his body like a piece of treasure and ruts their hips together as he kisses Dan messily. Their hands move faster by the second, and Dan wonders how it’s possible that he could be finding new places to touch even after all this time. He realizes Arin’s boxers are still on and gladly helps work them off. Arin lets him reach around to pull them around his thighs, chuckling all the while. He rakes his nails up and down Dan’s back to make him tremble. “Mhm,” Arin hums. “There you go.”

As soon as the last article of clothing is gone, Arin grabs Dan and flips him around against the armrest. Dan catches his gasp before it escapes and falls against the couch in surprise. He looks over his shoulder to watch as Arin grips his hips and pulls them towards him, stretching Dan out. His heart leaps into his throat when Arin meets his eyes for a fraction of a second, all at once knowing what will happen. “Oh,” Dan says lightly. “O-oh, ah—”

“Just relax,” Arin tells him, reaching forward and turning Dan’s head away and down. He nudges Dan’s legs apart, and Dan tries his best to comply on the small couch space. “I know what I’m doing.”

“Uh-huh,” Dan moans. Arin is practically on top of him, holding him down with his weight and reaching underneath him to caress his body. Wanton noises are milked out of his mouth as Arin rubs his thumb over his nipples, traces his ribs, leaves fading trails of red across Dan’s chest. His other hand preps him, back in his asshole and scissoring him gently to open it up. “You—you know where the, _ah_ …the lube is, r-right?”

The heat of Arin’s hand on his stomach disappears temporarily, possibly to reach for the lube they both know is in one of the compound coffee table cabinets. “Way ahead of you, sweetheart.”

Arin keeps lightly pushing his fingers in and out of Dan as he evidently finds the lube and begins oiling himself up. Dan looks behind him again, swallowing at the sight of Arin’s cock. No matter how many times he’s sucked it or jerked it, he always craves for more. “Arin,” he whispers. “Can I?”

Arin looks at him and smirks. “Absolutely.” He leans back and lets Dan crawl over to him and replace his hold. Both men sigh as Dan pushes his head against Arin’s neck and closes his eyes, losing himself as his hand soaks in the copious amounts of lube Arin has coated his dick with. Arin holds his other hand, tighter when Dan begins to pick up the pace. Soon Dan is jerking Arin off in earnest and earning his own share of _Oh, fuck yeah, Danny._

Arin’s fingers sink into Dan’s skin, on his shoulder and around his wrist, and Dan knows he’s struggling to hold himself off. He watches the younger man’s eyes roll back in his head, tongue just peeking out of his teeth, and playfully bites Arin’s neck. “I can do that, too,” he murmurs, sucking and relishing the feeling of Arin’s moans vibrating under his teeth.

Suddenly Arin’s hands push him away, and Dan breaks off with a disappointed yelp. “That’s good,” Arin breathes. A lion snarls through his deep rumble of a voice. “My turn again.”

Dan lets Arin hold him against the armrest and clutches the cover in anticipation. He wets his lips nervously and swallows hard when he feels Arin begin to position himself at his entrance. But for some reason, Arin hesitates. “Dan,” he says.

“Y-yeah?”

“You know what I want you to do?”

“Ar—Arin, come on—”

“Yeah. Yeah, like that.”

“What?”

“Beg,” Arin says, all at once in his ear. His body smothers Dan’s, and Dan’s breath snags on a stuttered whine when Arin begins stroking his dick. “You gotta beg for me, Danny.”

“Oh, stop—” Dan’s voices catches in a short scream at the pain Arin’s teeth unleash on his shoulder. “Fuck! Okay, G— _ah-h-h…_ A-Arin, yeah…please, I-I…”

Arin’s fingers toy with him, drawing pictures into his erection, rubbing over the little slit and smudging the precum over the head. But still, he does not enter Dan. “Wanna hear you louder.”

“Arin,” Dan cries. His fingernails break through the couch cover. “I-I want you, _fuck,_ that feels so good…”

“What do you want me to do to you?”

“I want…I want you to fuck me, Ar…” Dan’s face flushes. He’s never been able to say that with much conviction, no matter how true the words were.

“Mmm. Don’t believe you.” Arin pulls at him and the head of his own dick slides in just a little bit, making Dan whimper loudly.

“Oh, for fuck’s sake.” It’s beginning to get hard to breathe, and if Dan doesn’t say it now, he fears he never will. So he pushes down his dignity and pleads, “Arin, I want—fuck, I want y-you, to fuck me hard, with— _shit!_ I want—I _need_ you, now, you can fucking take me, do whatever the fuck you want, just please—” Dan gulps for breath. “Please, Arin, now—”

Arin’s shaky moan greets his efforts. “That’ll do.”

Dan isn’t ready for Arin to push inside of him. He knew how large he was, he knew what to expect, but the sheer feeling of being _filled_ is so foreign that Dan can’t help but scream. It’s pain but it’s glorious, and Arin’s hand still pumping his dick helps him endure the temporary ache. Dan collapses against the armrest, shrieking into it at the fingers rubbing his nipples and the beat that Arin pounds into his ass and drags over his dick. He has to bite into the couch to stifle the full volume of his cries.

“God, you’re so fucking _tight,_ Dan,” Arin says. He almost sounds surprised. “After all that?”

Dan can’t respond. He just shakes his head and moans, wishing there was something in his mouth that could sate him.

As if Arin knew exactly what he was thinking, the hand on his chest slides up his collar, up his neck, over his chin and into his mouth to fill his mouth with hot fingers again. Dan cranes his neck back and bends into Arin’s body to accommodate. His nipples that now stand alone are so erect it hurts him. “Arin,” Dan mumbles around Arin’s fingers. “G-God…”

His mind goes blank with the feeling of Arin fucking both his ass and his mouth, and briefly he pretends that the fingers in his mouth are another dick, just as wide as Arin’s. But even that fantasy vanishes when Arin hits his prostate again, and it throws Dan back against the armrest. Never before has he felt so small, so submissive, so incapable of surviving on his own. And he _loves_ it.

Dan claws at the couch as he starts up that climb again. He can hear Arin moaning, probably even louder than he is, and he knows there isn’t much time for either of them left. Arin begins to kiss his back, across his shoulders and even against his neck, and it only makes Dan reach his orgasm even faster. “A-Arin,” he whimpers. “Arin, I—”

He coughs as Arin’s hand switches from stroking his dick to messing with his balls, pressing them lightly enough to suppress his overwhelming urge to come. “Not yet, baby,” Arin says, speaking into the base of Dan’s neck. “A little—just a little _longer…_ ”

Dan has no idea where his body ends and Arin’s body begins. They feel like one organism, composed entirely of heat and ecstasy and sweat; they are two lifeforms that fall into perfect sync, who moan and breathe and grind together in unison. As they reach their orgasms at the same time, Dan knows he has never been so physically and mentally close to being one with another human being ever before in his life.

When Arin roars, hitting his prostate with a force that makes Dan scream his name, Dan’s remaining shreds of self control slip out of his reach. He feels something warm, something incredibly thick and viscous, filling him up and he knows it’s all he can take. He wails the whole time that he comes harder than he ever has in his life into Arin’s hand, abdomen and hips and legs a straight diagonal line from armrest to Arin’s pelvis. Arin holds him as his body almost falls apart with wave after wave of wild spasms, wringing out every last bit of his cum.

Dan finally collapses maybe years later. He has been reduced to feverish whimpers that squeak out of a limp, exhausted body. Arin slides out of him and he hardly notices; he doesn’t even complain when Arin all but falls on top of him, just as tired as he is.

They don’t speak for a good five or ten minutes. The time is spent panting and sighing and trying to regain their bearings. Dan feels his cum on his stomach and Arin’s cum over his asscheeks, the backs of his thighs, and even smearing onto his back when Arin moves around. Slowly, trying to minimize the dull soreness that begins to burn in his ass, Dan rolls over to face Arin. Arin’s eyes are open, staring down at him, shining with the remnants of erotic passion. But it melts into something more tender, more authentic, a few seconds after.

Dan is the first to speak. “Th-that was…” he searches for the words— “that was really, really…really good, Arin, wow…”

“You were fucking amazing, too.” Arin’s voice is as hoarse as his. “Best I’ve ever had.”

“Oh yeah?” Dan laughs. “Best anal sex ever?”

“Yep.”

“Not even Suzy was that good?”

“Nope.”

Dan whistles, pretending not to be genuinely flattered. “Well…that was my first time, anyway, so…also the best I’ve ever had.”

“Well, good. I’m glad.” A thought occurs to him, and Arin’s eyes widen a bit. “I wasn’t, uh. Not too rough, right? I know…that it’s always like that, but. Wasn’t sure how far you’d let me go with your asshole.”

Dan shakes his head adamantly, laughing for no reason. “No. God, no, that was fucking incredible. Thank you. Fuck, thank you, I loved every second. We better do that every time, now.” He pokes Arin’s chest for emphasis.

Arin’s face relaxes as he grins. “You know what? I think we will. Didn’t I tell you butt stuff was great? And to think you only ever wanted me to suck you off.”

Dan laughs harder and does his best to lift his head so he can gratefully kiss his boyfriend. “I still want that,” he says, dragging Arin in deeper. He kisses him for a few more seconds before continuing, “Didn’t get much of that sexy mouth action tonight.”

“Is that a round two I hear?” Arin asks, in that tone where Dan knows he’s only half joking.

He pretends to think as Arin lifts himself up on his elbows eagerly. Both men look down at the threads of cum stretching between them and staining the couch. “Well,” Dan says, a bit in astonishment, “I think, first, that we should go get clean.” A mischievous smile replaces his old grin as he looks up at Arin, batting his lashes meaningfully.

Arin is off him in an instant, springing off the couch and scooping Dan up in his arms. Dan bursts out laughing and grabs Arin’s neck, kissing his collar as Arin runs off in the direction of Dan’s master bathroom.

 

.

.

.

_and if you hurt me_

_that's okay baby, only words bleed_

_inside these pages you just hold me_

_and I won't ever let you go_

 

### viii. blizzard

The pain begins to chase him into his dreams.  Where once was happiness, there is now a dull bitterness; where he once smiled because of his joy, he now smiles to hide the tears. On the nights he spends alone, he’s often aware of himself tossing and turning until he wakes himself up. During the worst of such nights, he sobs until his throat is clogged and his pillow and face are soaked with his sadness.

What’s worse, Dan can feel the interactions between him and Arin becoming more forced. Perhaps it isn’t a mutual feeling, a sign that both of them have noticed (and for that, he would count himself lucky), but it’s becoming tougher and tougher for him to genuinely receive his boyfriend’s affections. To _return_ it, even, at least with pure motives.

A month or two after they had anal sex for the first time, things began to slowly go downhill. Dan grew more possessive. He began hoping for more, more, ever more. He could no longer enjoy the kisses Arin gave him, the times in the office when Arin would sneak them off to lock themselves in a supply closet and make out and get handsy until somebody came looking for them. The same loving words during Arin’s transparent episodes fail to lift his spirits; now they weigh him down with guilt.

Dan now suffers an unhealthy distraction, almost constant throughout his day, as he focuses far too much on what might come next to the point where he could no longer sit in the present. In the beginning, those things were special—Dan was special. But something began to change within the last few weeks. He’s started to get jealous. Terrifyingly jealous.

He knows very well he’s being unfair every time he breaks a kiss too early because he feels a sting, or when he does nothing but smile and duck his head when Arin compliments him. Inside, it burns him to act this way, and it’s all Dan can do to pretend he doesn’t notice the rapid flashes of confusion—hurt, even—that cross over Arin’s face. Sometimes he tries to alleviate it, go back to Arin a little while later and return the actions in what he hopes is a more magnificent way. But that costs energy and a crushing amount of willpower to do, neither of which Dan can spare. And so those occurrences don’t happen more often than they do.

Dan isn’t a fool. He knows these thoughts, these debilitating thoughts that feel like bloodsucking leeches, are directed at Suzy. He’s known that from the start, and he’s hated himself each time he uncorks a new bottle of poison, drinks it, and hopes Suzy or Arin might suffer. And now the acid is beginning to tear at him, devour him from the inside out, and Dan is losing control. It’s becoming so much easier to get mad, to let that venom spit forth from his tongue for the quickest of seconds, so fast that even the other person scarcely catches it. He’s snapped at Arin, Suzy, Brian, Ross all alike, and only a couple times has it really dawned on them that he has. But Dan knows. He knows that soon enough, he will boil over with the gripping, green envy, because he _knows_ Arin will never be his alone.

It just feels so much better to hate Suzy. And that is what horrifies him the most.

He’s nursing that venom now, stirring up a new cauldron of toxins while Arin tries to make conversation with him. He just twirls his fork in the spaghetti on the plate before him and flicks his eyes away whenever his boyfriend tries to hold Dan’s gaze. Dan itches in his seat, squirming under the stare that he knows is searing into his forehead, until Arin finally says, “Dan, are you ok? What are you thinking about?”

Dan flinches, glancing up at Arin before focusing intently on his half-empty glass of water. A drop of liquid rolls down the side, making a line in the condensation that still ices the outside of the container. He knows he would probably be trying to act right now, because it’s still his self-nominated job to make Arin happy, but he just can’t.

Warmth envelops his hand. As soon as he realizes it’s Arin holding him, Dan quickly looks up to defend himself. He bites back a curse when he accidentally meets Arin’s eyes, because he’s immediately caught in that stare that freezes him where he is. It’s like the lasso of fucking truth that ensnares him, binds him to Arin’s spirit and renders his sense of deception useless. But certainly, Dan cannot tell him now, in the middle of a five-star restaurant filled with people chatting by candlelight. So all he mumbles is: “Not here. Later, ok?”

Arin hesitates. The look of unease only grows darker on his face. But he purses his lips and nods, squeezing Dan’s hand in what feels like a gesture of trust. “Only if you promise to talk to me.”

Dan looks down, throat bone-dry. “Sure,” he chokes. He stuffs the fork into his mouth to keep him from having to say more.

 

* * *

 

Neither of them say a word when Arin walks Dan to his door. Arin opens the door for him, letting Dan go in alone, and the elder almost dares to think that perhaps he’ll actually get away without a confession tonight. He turns around with a goodbye on his lips, but his hopes are crushed when Arin steps around him, cages him against the doorframe with his mass, and wedges his body against the door to keep it from closing.

“Hold on,” Arin says. His eyes drill holes into Dan’s. “We still gotta talk, babe. Something’s up, and…and I gotta know what it is.”

“Fuck,” Dan blurts, unable to hold it in. He steps back and covers his mouth guiltily with one hand. He looks away.

Arin frowns deeply. His face looks twenty years older with the dread that pulls his features down. “I’ll take that as a yes, then.” He shoulders the door all the way open again and Dan keeps backing up, letting Arin shut it behind him.

His heart drops into his stomach as he watches Arin turn the lock and walk up to him. His gait is controlled, more assertive than intimidating, and his body language is too familiar for Dan to be genuinely afraid that Arin might force him into a situation that he doesn’t want. But even though Arin is nowhere near him when his back hits a nearby wall, Dan huddles against it, stricken with a cold sense of apprehension. This makes Arin look sad all over again, possibly because never before has Dan acted so scared of him. Still, he doesn’t back down—Dan knows that Arin’s nature would not let him.

Arin reaches tentatively forward, only touching Dan’s face when he knows Dan will allow him. “You know,” he says quietly, “you seem to have this crazy idea that you can hide things from me.”

Dan wrinkles his nose. His face heats up fifty degrees and his traitorous mouth seems to have a mind of its own. “It’s been working well enough so far.”

Arin’s face hardens. Dan winces, because he knows he has just admitted to everything. Luckily, his boyfriend allows him some dignity, and doesn’t call him out until ten long seconds later when nothing else is said. “Dan. Come on,” he presses, tenderly but resolutely all the same.

“It’s really not important.”

“Bullshit,” Arin snorts. “I mean—I’m sorry. I’m sorry, Danny, but. You know I don’t fall for that.” His tone softens again. “I can take it, love. Please talk to me.”

A white-hot rod of lead had begun scorching its way into Dan’s chest since Arin apologized. It only gets worse with each second Arin stands there, gazing at him unwaveringly. He knows he can’t dodge this conversation, because even if Arin somehow let him off the hook this time, there would become a wall built between them that would only grow thicker and thicker until Dan comes clean. He may as well confess now, while there is still a chance of reconciliation. Arin knows him too well to convincingly lie, so stretching the truth is out of question. And Dan can’t just change the subject, because Arin is too smart for that, and he’s already decided against it. The only way out now is to just speak.

“Can you?” says Dan at last, trying to stall for a few more precious seconds that might allow him to figure out a solution. What he needs is a polite way to tell Arin that he’s beginning to resent his wife and wants him all to himself.

Arin begins to shift his weight from foot to foot. “Just say it,” he says, beginning to look uncomfortable. But the determined look doesn’t fade. He even begins to lean in, probably subconsciously, thumbing at Dan’s bottom lip in what he might think is a reassuring movement. It only makes Dan more nervous, this charged proximity.

“I-I—” Dan squeezes his eyes shut and shakes his head. He pushes Arin’s hands away and keeps his palm firm against his chest to stop him from getting closer. “Sorry, just…” He takes a deep breath. Wishes his knees weren’t shaking so hard. “Don’t…please don’t touch me, not right now, alright? Just…just back up. I’m so sorry.”

Arin steps back. He tries and fails to not look wounded. A hint of desperation spills into his words, bumping him up half an octave higher. “Is it—is it something I did?” he asks, voice cracking harshly. “Tell me what I did, Dan. Please, I—I can make up for it. I swear—”

“No, no, no, God, that’s not it at all. It’s not you,” Dan says quickly. He reaches forward and grabs Arin’s hand, instinctively drawing consoling circles into his palm before he remembers the situation. He lets go and steps back against the wall. He looks at Arin apologetically all the while, “It’s me. It’s me, it’s completely me, it…well, actually…no. That’s…a lie.” An overwhelming sense of anxiety clutches at Dan, filling his goblet of a body up with terror, mind-numbing like liquor. “Oh, God.”

“A lie? Why?” Then it dawns on Arin. “There…there’s another person, isn’t there?” He pauses, but before Dan can correct him, he rushes on. “Are you seeing someone else? You—you can tell me. I, uh…I won’t get mad, I just wanna know…”

“I’m not seeing someone else,” Dan exclaims. If he didn’t have the wall behind him, he would have already collapsed under the frustration and trepidation chaining him down. “It’s—it’s—”

He stops, inhales deeply, covers his face with his hands and stays there for a while where it is safe. How fucked is it, that he has to hide from the one man who’s only ever given him a home?

Everything goes silent when at last, he drops his hands and says, defeated, “It’s Suzy, Arin.”

A beat passes. Two. Three. A storm cloud passes over Arin’s face, and all at once his voice is like stone. Unreadable and unshaken. And still, he sounds like he’s trying to figure out what Dan means. “What about her?” he asks. “Dan…”

A bubble of vulnerable inspiration pops in Dan’s throat, and all at once he is speaking and he cannot stop. “I’m jealous,” he says, “I’ve always been jealous, of her, and—and, Arin, I’m getting more possessive. I know it’s not fair and I _hate it_ , I really fucking do but at the same time I just—I don’t care, and I know I signed up for this when I started dating you but—fuck, A-Arin, I want you to _myself_ and I don’t know what to do—”

“You know I still love her, too.”

“I know that!” Dan shouts. He looks foolish, he sounds foolish, and he has never hated himself more than in this one moment in time. “But, tell me, Arin—how am I supposed to coexist in a world with her? In _your_ world? I have to share it too! And—and, oh, maybe that’s the thing, that I find the person who I’m actually willing to settle down with and spend my life with and live until I _die_ with, and I have to _share_ that life?”

He stops to breath deeply, on the verge of tears because he’s finally letting out weeks of restless nights and muffled screams all at once. “Arin, I can’t do that! I—I think maybe I had this stupid idea, that we were ‘meant to be’ and you don’t have to tell me how batshit crazy that is but still, for _so long_ I thought maybe—”

Arin butts in again, this time with the exact volume and sharpness Dan had never wanted to hear. “You want me to leave my wife, forget everything I’ve known for twenty years, maybe even the possibility of having a _family_ for you?” he clarifies incredulously. “I—Dan, I know that you’re not being literal, but. You gotta know how crazy that is. I’m sorry, fuck, I’m so so sorry you feel this way. I should’ve, I don’t know, I should’ve guessed you’d end up like this but…Dan, that’s insane.”

“I don’t _care,_ ” spits Dan. Something comes over him, something that convinces him to jump on that acidic, scalding wave of anger and ride it out as it crashes on the coast of their lives. He lets it surge through him and surrenders to the words he would never say in his right mind gush from his mouth. “I thought I was different. I thought maybe you could make exceptions for me. Every time you loved me, every time you kissed me, every time you did anything kind for me _ever_ —it never fucking meant anything for real, did it, Arin?”

“That’s ridiculous,” Arin retorts. His voice balances on the edge of begging and exasperation. “I _do_ love you, Dan, you know that I—”

Dan pays no mind to Arin’s irritatingly justified words. “I could never be your only focus. No matter what I do for you, it’s never gonna be enough for either of us.”

“Dan! I decided to date you _despite_ already having a whole fucking wife _because_ I love you! Fuck,” Arin cries out, pulling his hands through his hair, “I never thought I’d do this shit for you in the first place!”

“Then _why_ did you?”

“Because you _do_ mean something to me! I thought—I thought I’ve made that very clear!” Arin lowers his voice and breaths through his teeth for a moment. He sounds crushed. “Tell me what you want, Dan. Are you trying to make me choose between you and Suzy?”

“Yes! No!” Dan grabs his head and turns away, pressing his forehead into the wall and wishing the tears swimming in his eyes would just go away. “I don’t know! I don’t—don’t know, Arin—”

“What are you trying to tell me? What do you want from me?”

“I don’t, _want_ anything,” Dan answers. A sob begins to stutter through his words. “I’m just—I said I’m jealous, alright? I can’t keep doing this with you. Kissing and holding hands and having sex and calling you my boyfriend when we both know you belong to someone else. It just…it hurts so fucking bad, and you probably wouldn’t know how it feels, but—”

“Of _course_ I do, Dan.” Arin adopts that reasoning tone, almost identical to the one he uses on the show when he’s complimenting Dan or trying to reach a neutral ground. “You forget I’m the one with the double relationship, right? I gotta keep you both happy, make sure you both know I’m in love with you, each of you, regardless of the other person, and, _shit,_ I didn’t know that I was failing so fucking hard with you.”

Dan is like a cold, broken piece of sumptuous pottery, abandoned by its maker and left to crumble. “Why didn’t you ask?”

“Why didn’t _you_ say anything?” Arin snaps. “I’m sorry, I couldn’t tell anything was wrong. Maybe I was too busy juggling you and Suzy all the damn time to really relax and see if it was actually working. Maybe _I’m_ confused, too. So could you just—don’t dismiss me as a victim too, okay?”

A bolt of lightning courses through Dan’s body and steals the air right from his lungs. A plume of red clouds his vision as for some reason, everything he wanted to say disappears from his mind. “What,” he says, “the _fuck_ does that mean?”

“I—I’m just saying, Dan—look, just don’t accuse me of whatever the hell your point is before thinking about what I’ve gotta deal with.” Arin’s fingers work his temples, and Dan begins to notice the man’s composure breaking down. “Clearly, we haven’t been talking as much as we should’ve. I’ll take some blame for that, I thought you were fine. You seemed fine.”

“I am not.”

“Listen,” Arin says carefully, “Suzy is my wife. She…she has priority, okay? You know that she’s entitled to me before you. You can’t…” He stops, and then clears his throat to speak his next words with a decisive air of finality. “You cannot ask me to give her up. She comes first, Dan.”

Hearing Arin say that up close in person is like a blow to the gut. It doesn’t matter that the way he says it is restrained, not inherently aggressive, spoken like the simple fact it is. Doesn’t matter that Arin’s right and Dan knows he’s in the wrong. Because should he not have a right to speak his mind? But now he has, and Dan’s heart sinks when he realizes that he had no chance of winning this argument even from the start. He knows where this will lead.

A hot tear crawls down his cheek. He almost touches his face to make sure there are no burn marks left in its wake. “I can’t share you,” Dan decides timidly, pulling his hands to his chest and edging along the wall, further into the house. Arin makes no move to come closer. “I don’t know how. Never have. I’m sorry.”

“You’ve been doing pretty good this whole time.”

Somehow, witnessing Arin trying to suddenly appeal to him and get back in his good graces only makes it worse for Dan. He chokes on a thick wad of fury. “I’ve been good at _acting._ ” He practically spits the words at Arin’s feet.

Arin must see through his resentful facade, because his face droops and he angles his body back towards the older man. Quietly he suggests, “Dan, maybe we can—”

“Don’t,” Dan snaps, all at once filled with a shocking cold. “Just go.”

Arin freezes in alarm. “No, hold on, Dan. C’mon. We—we can figure something out, can’t we? Now I know, and—”

“Get _out._ ”

“I don’t want to leave you li—”

Dan lifts his voice in the hopes that maybe he can drown out everything he’s hearing, everything he’s feeling. “I could never do this with Suzy in the picture. Wish I told you sooner. Hurts too much.” Dan sniffs and fiercely wipes away his tears. He feels hollow. “This won’t work. Not anymore. I need—I need to be alone.”

“Dan.”

“Don’t make me call the police, Arin.”

Arin looks like a fish out of water, opening and closing his mouth multiple times. If Dan squints, he might even mistake Arin for a ghost, he’s so pale. But he can’t find the room to regret his bitter words. They didn’t even sound like his own; this whole time, it’s felt as though he was watching a tragic scene play out in front of him, acted out by two men he didn’t even know. So he doesn’t apologize, doesn’t do anything but wait until Arin finally says, “Okay.”

When he turns, Dan thinks he sees moonlight from the window glitter on something wet on Arin’s face. He’s gone before he can tell for sure. The door is thrown open and slammed shut, leaving Dan in a silent, empty house with a situation so much worse than it before.

As if in a trance, Dan stumbles two steps towards the door before quite literally sinking to the floor. He stares at the hardwood, wondering why all of a sudden his vision is getting blurry and why his hands suddenly feel so like they’ll slip on the wetness underneath him. He sways perilously until he pitches forward, sliding in the puddle his tears have made.

And that is where he pitifully lies for what could be days. Months, even. Because he doesn’t feel anything. He wants to sob, punch a wall, scream until he’s spitting blood. But there is only an abyss, a ravine that slices deep into his heart, where he deposits his grievances and, for the moment, feels them no longer.

He wonders how this incredible thing became so painful, until he discovers that he only wants it to be over.

 

.

.

.

_wait for me to come home_

_wait for me to come home_

_wait for me to come home_

_wait for me to come home_

 

### ix. frigidity**

“You need to go outside,” Brian insists. This is his eleventh phone call in three days. “Dan, for me. You’ve been inside for, what, at _least_ a week? That isn’t healthy, Dan.”

Dan chugs down the rest of the beer remaining in the glass bottle and sighs heartily, covering his mouth as he burps. “Uhuh,” he mutters, tossing it to the carpeted floor.

The phone speaker crackles indignantly. “Do you want to talk to me?”

“No.”

“Have you talked to _anyone?_ ”

“No.”

“So your brilliant fucking plan is to stew in your house, isolate yourself from all your _supportive_ friends who _will help you_ —or so help me I will fight them all—and skip every Grump recording and all your vocal lessons without _any_ sense of remorse?”

“You know, Brian, it sounds a lot worse when you say it like that.”

“Daniel!”

Dan winces. “Don’t yell at me,” he says, picking up the phone and putting it back on normal volume.

Brian exhales, transmitting his exasperation across the line. “You don’t need to tell me what exactly happened,” he says, “but, man, you gotta talk to him about it. Because, fuck, this isn’t good. I’m worried about you. Everyone is. You know, Dan, you’re the backbone of the Grumps, and by _God_ , NSP could not survive without you. Not because of your heavenly vocals, or whatever, but because it just—it wouldn’t be the same.”

“Oh, you’d survive. It’s not like I’m leaving forever. But—thanks,” he adds. He drags himself into the kitchen and opens the refrigerator with an unnecessary force. He scans the shelves even though he knows nothing has magically added itself to its tragically bare ranks within the last ten minutes of checking. “As for the Grumps, that’s a _hilariously_ colossal stretch.”

Brian doesn’t even try to argue. Probably because he knows Dan won’t listen. “At least go for a walk, okay? You need some air. Wouldn’t do anyone good coming to your place and finding you dead drunk on the floor. Er—hold on a sec.” His voice disappears, and Dan hears some incoherent audio in the background. Brian shouts something in response away from the phone. Then he comes back, saying, “I need to go. I think Audrey just threw up on the dog. But I’ll be checking on you later tonight, okay? Trust me—you can do this, buddy. I believe in you. Really, Dan.”

“Thanks,” Dan says without much conviction.

“Yeah. I mean—anytime. I’ll talk to you soon.” The line goes dead.

Dan frowns and chucks his phone across the room without a second thought. He watches it hit the other couch and bounce across the cushions, looking as flimsy as Dan. He sinks back into his seat with a loud groan.

Eventually he retrieves his phone, a few boring minutes later, to open up his playlist. He finds the one labeled **_for the storms_ ** and hits play before he can think twice. He drops it on the coffee table and promptly flops back into his former position to wallow in his self-pity. Bastille begins to drift in with cool, soft instrumentals, and Dan closes his eyes, curling up in a limp ball on the sofa. Maybe he’s crying. He can’t tell anymore. Within a few minutes, he dozes off.

When he awakens, a stiffness has set into his bones and his eyes feel glued shut. It takes him a few minutes to blink and rub the grogginess away. He looks outside—it’s dark.

Dan tries to lift himself up, disoriented by how heavy he feels. Somewhere inside of him, he hates this lack of productivity, but sometimes it’s unnervingly pleasant to lounge around and do nothing.

He blindly fumbles for his phone to restart the playlist. Unfortunately, he overextends himself without thinking, and crashes to the floor with a startled “SHIT!” on the way down.

When he does, finally, get a hold on his phone, he checks the time. A bright white **9:38** cheerfully greets him. “Perfect,” Dan grumbles, realizing he had been asleep for nearly seven hours. He swipes grumpily through his notifications, only skimming them for anything important.

Countless missed calls and texts from Brian. That’s expected. Dan makes a mental note to call him back later and apologize.

A few texts from Matt and Ryan, a series from Ross.

Some emails on the NSP account.

Alerts from websites he’s subscribed to.

And then Dan stiffens, because buried underneath everything, so hidden and random that he almost skipped right over it, are a series of nearly twenty-five texts from Arin. All in rapid procession, all sent within a span of two minutes.

Dan stares at the notifications for about a minute or two before he clears them all, feeling as though if he reads them, he might just be struck dead where he stands. He drops his phone back onto the table and stumbles back. A sense of extreme vertigo takes hold of him, weakens his legs. At the beginning of the afternoon he hadn’t wanted to leave this house; now, that’s all he wants to do. To get away from that phone and away from everything Arin wants to say.

He turns hard on his heels and marches to the door, grabbing his jacket and yanking it harshly over his arms and back. He pockets his keys, slips on his shoes, and exits in a whirlwind. In his frenzy, he has to turn back once to lock his door. Then he’s out in the night, inhaling the cold breeze that he hasn’t felt in a lifetime.

Dan hurries down the driveway and turns onto the sidewalk. It isn’t long before he settles into a brisk pace without a care for where his feet will take him. He’s always felt most peaceful at night, but now he can’t decide on whether he loves or hates the quiet, because now he has no excuse for distraction. Now he can think.

The orange glow of the streetlights line his path down the street. He watches as his shadows sharpen and fade under the lights like the measures of a melancholy song. It’s chilly, it’s getting windy, but it doesn’t matter to him.

 _I let him go,_ he thinks, shuddering as a car rushes by. _He’s gone. Gone. Maybe even forever._

But then another side of him jumps forward and scolds sharply, _He has Suzy, dumbass. Wasn’t like he ever really needed me. The way I needed him. Need him._

_He could come back._

_Why would he? There’s no reason for him to. Not with Suzy. And he could find other people to take my place._

_But he still cares. I know he does._ An uncomfortable feeling pricks at the back of his mind, because maybe that’s where Dan went wrong. Overestimating his worth. _He—he said I really meant something to him._

The ravine splits open under his feet with a vengeance. Dan falls into it, not even trying to hang onto the edge. He almost welcomes it, in a way. It’s so cold, so empty. He feels lost, but it’s a feeling he doesn’t mind, since he’d rather walk aimlessly than wind up at a destination that would condemn him. He doesn’t even mind the way his mind twists and turns in so many circles, bringing him back to the same point every time: _he never needed me._

Dan passes over a bridge a little ways outside his neighborhood, taking him over a busy highway full of lights and sound. So unlike his own home, his own heart. He stops, all at once very lonely, and leans on the edge with his elbows.

The breeze tugs at his hair, whispering softly and inviting him to join them in the sky. He wishes he could take them up on that offer.

The left lane burns white and the right floods over with rushing red, and Dan watches as the cars below hurtle past. He wishes he could leave that quickly, too.

He turns away before his feet can start entertaining the idea to climb up on the edge and let the wind take control, join the cars rushing by.

His pace is much faster than before.

The street he enters is much darker than the last one, clotted with thick trees that smother the few lamps attempting to brighten the narrow avenue. The sounds of the highway become more distant until they disappear all together and leave Dan alone with the crickets. He listens to them chirp exuberantly with a blank expression, because he remembers when he and Arin had listened to them one night so long ago.

They had been in the woods out late; it was a similar sort of night, but they were together. Arin had grabbed his hand and kissed his cheek before saying something that was 100% Arin Hanson. Something about how, really, it’s just the sounds of thousands of horny insects trying to get fucked. And Dan had laughed, like he always did, playfully slapping Arin and telling him to shut up and let him enjoy it. So Arin pulled him over to an empty patch of grass, maybe three miles away from where Dan is now, on a hill that he’ll only visit in his memories. They spent the next hour in each other’s arms, lying under the moon and counting stars and listening to the crickets, kissing every time they heard a squirrel rustle in the leaves.

Dan tastes salt in his mouth and he realizes he’s crying again. Except, this time, it’s a real cry, the sort that he’s been so successfully denying himself during these two long weeks of abstinence. The kind that opens his lungs and sneaks between his lips, even though he’s given up trying to hold it back.

It feels so good to let it all out. He hadn’t realized how horribly it’s been treating him, to suppress that kind of emotion for so long. Deciding there isn’t anyone out to hear him, he cries out and shouts and does everything he wanted to do before. In fact, he takes a turn into the side woods down the slope of this sidewalk to quite literally fling himself against a tree and wail. It’s the picture perfect image of someone _disgustingly_ pathetic, but right now, it’s exactly what Dan needs. Being human, he supposes, does not mean always being dignified. Actually, the lack of dignity is only inevitable.

Droves of vivid shame overflows from his body. He lets it, indulging in the suffocating blanket he is enveloped in. For the first time since that final dinner, Dan _wants_ to regret it. Wants to strive for Arin’s forgiveness. And he does. He screams into his teeth, sinks down the side of the tree trunk and savors the taste of pungent bark that stings his tongue. There are small areas of hot discomfort where the uneven surface scrapes at his exposed skin, but he has learned to ignore them.

When he’s forced the worst of it out, he returns to the pavement and continues. He’s still deeply shaken, of course; all he’s accomplished is letting himself feel the brunt of his pain. But now comes the anger, a raw, crimson hatred that starts to froth inside of him.

His tears start to feel like little droplets of acid that eat down his face. His nails dig into his palms, maybe even pull droplets of bloods that spring to the surface; Dan doesn’t even register it as pain. His concern lies in the outrage that manifests itself in the cold sweat that breaks out all over his skin.

The thing is, that rage isn’t at Arin. It’s at himself. It’s for shouting at Arin and failing to temper his envy and refusal to compromise. He knew Arin had been willing to help him out, but it was the explosion of hidden feelings that disabled both men from the total understanding required. Arin had no idea how deep Dan’s jealousy ran, and Dan never brought it up. Somehow—and when Dan thinks this, he almost laughs at the absurdity of it—throughout their two and a half years of dating, they’ve failed to explicitly discuss the nature of Arin’s, Suzy’s, and Dan’s mutually open relationships in an organized fashion that would ensure no one had a wildly different perception. There was only the necessary but rudimentary conversation between the three of them at the start, and then various, two-minute references that really didn’t accomplish anything but avoid an immediate issue.

All of this contributed to how Dan practically forced the matter because he was so caught up in feeling sorry for himself. He can’t even begin to think of any possible way to make up for that show of recklessness.

Dan cries out once again, recognizing his own unimaginable fault in this plight. His face grows heavy with the saturation of his tears, and soon enough the collar of his undershirt shares the same fate. He walks on blindly, stumbling in his grief, vision becoming a mixture of blurred colors and lights.

The funny thing is, he actually finds the image quite beautiful.

He trips when the ground suddenly drops a level beneath his feet and catches himself at the very last second. The falter doesn’t even faze him. He would have just kept lurking through the night if it were not for the outburst of loud, layered noise that shatters the fragile walls of his mind. It sounds like a phantom scream that rips him out of the murky gray sea he wallows in and launches him back into the real world. It’s only when Dan resurfaces that he realizes it’s a horn, roaring at him at ungodly volumes.

His head clears in an instant. He looks to his right and discovers the twisted beauty of time truly taking the opportunity to slow down for a human. In the second that stretches out into an eternity, Dan starts to register the car swerving towards him at a speed certainly not allowed within city limits. It’s his reflexes that save him, though, not his faulty abilities of perception.

His muscles react and yank his body to the side of the road. He finds himself diving through the air with a silent scream tearing from his mouth—he’s unable to bring forth any extra oxygen to voice it. The car thunders past him in a deafening cacophony of sound that indicates its location, perhaps just inches away from clipping his legs.

The rancid hurricane of fumes left in its wake washes over Dan as he hits the asphalt hard on his shoulder. The breathless scream comes forth again, this time materializing as a high-pitched cry cut short, when a stunning discharge of pain detonates in him at the place of impact. He rolls multiple times before resting on his back, pressed up against the opposite curb, forgetting entirely how to breathe. Even if he did have air left in his lungs, he could hardly find the strength to force it in and out of him with the coils of pain twisting over his shoulder blades and collarbones and spine, ultimately binding themselves to the bones where they rest and preventing Dan from even _thinking_ about moving.

It takes him a series of rapid heartbeats before he can form a complete thought. _He almost hit me. He almost hit me._ “He almost hit me.”

He has to take many breaths before he can talk to himself again, and even then he needs more. “Almost ran over me.”

 _I could’ve died,_ he thinks when he can’t speak anymore. _I could’ve died. I could be dead. Dead and gone and the last thing I told Arin was to go away—_

Maybe it’s cliche. Maybe it’s happened in so many more ways before him to far better—or would it be worse?—people. But never before has Dan come so close, literal inches, from sudden death. He can’t even feel terrified, as he assumes he should be, that his life was almost snuffed out. In fact, he’s lulled into a perverse sense of wonder at his own mortality. At how his days really are numbered down here.

In the end, that’s all he really needs to make up his mind.

“Oh my God!”

Forgetting his ailment in his surprise, Dan sits up fast. He inhales sharply and immediately sinks back down against the curb when the pain admonishes him with a whip-like lash that licks over his back. He can, however, turn his head, and he makes out a figure running straight towards him. If he looks a little past her, he can see what appears to be a car parallel-parked a very sloppy haste.

The person ends up being a young woman, maybe in her late twenties. Her face is a dangerous shade of white. “I saw it almost run over you! Oh my fucking _God,_ are you okay?” she asks, dropping to her knees to reach his level. She throws a dirty look in the direction the speeding driver had been going. “Jesus, these _drivers_ here, I swear. But holy shit, are—are you—”

“I’m okay,” Dan coughs. He tries to rise, and then falls back down. “Or maybe not.”

“Oh, God, can I help you up? Can you _get_ up?”

“Don’t know.” But Dan steels his nerves and lets the woman gently lift him to a low stance. Fortunately he only has to bear the pain for a couple seconds, when he has to use his own strength to get up. After that, the woman lets him move his weight onto her, proving to be admirably strong and sturdy.

She lets him catch his breath, both of them in an awkward, almost squatting position on the sidewalk, before asking, “Do you have a phone? Can I call anyone for you?”

“Yeah, I—” And then Dan remembers that he left his phone in his house. He groans. “Actually. No. Just my luck, right?”

The woman chuckles faintly. “Well, okay. Um, I—I can call 911, if, uh, if you want, but you don’t seem, you know, _that_ hurt…”

“I’m not,” Dan assures her. “I just hit my shoulder pretty hard. Probably not too bad. Probably not broken.”

“Oh.” The woman frowns, seeming temporarily lost for words. “You’re sure?”

“Yep.” _Nope_.

“Well, I can still call someone. Do you have, um…a girlfriend, or—”

Dan actually laughs, startling his companion. “No. I mean—no, not a girlfriend, he’s actually—”

Seeing her bewildered expression, he backtracks and tries again. “Would it be too much a favor to ask you to drive me somewhere? I know it’s kinda sketchy, driving a stranger in the middle of the night, but it’s not far, and…”

The woman smiles and shrugs. “I just saw you almost get hit by a fucking car. I’m more worried about _you_ dying, not me. But, you know, can I get your name, at least?”

“Of course. I’m Dan.”

“Alright, then, Dan. My name’s Carmen. I’ll drive you.”

 

.

.

.

 

_you can fit me_

_inside the necklace you got when you were sixteen_

_next to your heartbeat where I should be_

_keep it deep within your soul_

 

### x. dawn (reprise)

They pull up at the front of a darkened house about a half hour later, right after a quick detour to a Walgreens for a package of heat packs. Carmen had insisted on purchasing at least that much for him. Two now sit on his shoulder, nestled underneath his shirt and jacket. The teeth of the pain have worn off, and now it’s just a dull but persistent throb that is present whenever Dan moves. He’s encouraged, though, by his minimal suffering, because it indicates that his shoulder is not, in fact, broken.

Carmen turns to him from the front seat and asks skeptically, “This is the right place?”

“Yeah. Thank you so much, Carmen.”

“Do—do you need me to help you to the door?”

“Nah, I think I’ll manage.” Dan hesitates, and then: “I’d pay you back, but. I’m wallet-less.”

Carmen shakes her head and hands. “Oh, God, don’t even worry about it. But, uh…” Even in the dark, Dan can see her face flush. “Could I give you my number, maybe, just—you know, just in case you, I don’t know—”

Dan grins warmly and saves her from trying to recover. “Sure. You’ve been so much of a help. I wish I could repay you better.” He takes the offered paper with her scribbled number and pockets it after neatly folding it.

“Don’t go running into any more cars, okay?” says Carmen, watching him move to leave.

“Will do.” Dan reaches out and takes her hand, thanking her with a chaste kiss between the knuckles. He looks up at her and smiles at her pleasantly surprised expression. “Thank you again!”

Carmen nods, blushing lightly, and unlocks the door for him. It’s a struggle, but Dan manages to open the door and ease himself out. His upper body creaks and complains with the effort all the while. He shuts the door with his hips and waves halfheartedly, standing in place as Carmen backs out of the driveway and into the street. She lingers for a few seconds, undoubtedly watching him, and drives away soon enough.

Dan exhales and faces the house. Left alone, his nervous knees begin to knock together again. He starts forward stiffly, pushing his lips together each time his shoulders move a little too far out. Eventually he reaches the front door and, after a long minute of standing, procrastinating, worrying, he knocks on it hard.

Two minutes pass, and nothing in the house stirs. Dan pulls his sleeve back to check his badly cracked watch for the time. It’s barely later than 10:30. Even though it’s still midweek, Arin should certainly still be up by now. Dan knocks again and steps back, wondering for a brief, horrifying moment if he’ll have to find another way home. Then he resolves to sleeping on Arin’s front porch if he has to, and the fear slips away despite the idiocy of the idea.

Luckily, this time he hears footsteps, and he has little more than three seconds to compose himself before the door creaks open. Arin’s wide form fills the gap between the slab of wood and the frame. Clearly, he didn’t care about appearances to random visitors in the early night, because his face is tired and uninviting between wet, matted swaths of hair. But when his eyes find Dan’s face, lock on him, recognize him, they clear of drowsiness in a flash. He straightens, bouncing between caution and interest.

“Dan?” Arin gasps. “Why are you…” His gaze travels down Dan’s bruised, scratched face, and then to the unnatural lump on his shoulder. He notes Dan’s disheveled hair and clothes. His mouth drops and he moves towards Dan with his arms out, two years of protectiveness and concern beating out two cold weeks. “What the _hell_ happened to you? Fuck, are you okay—”

The immediate attention Dan is welcomed with finds that chink in his armor, and he can’t hold himself back any longer. He lunges at Arin and throws his arms around him, ignoring the pain that tries and fails to hinder him. He doesn’t cry, doesn’t say anything. He just holds onto him tightly, trembling because he never wants to go without this man again.

Arin is frozen for a second, but, to Dan’s relief, he returns the hug just as intensely, rocking Dan back and forth in the doorway. Dan chooses not to tell him that he’s hugging the one part of his body that absolutely does _not_ want to be touched, for fear he will break the embrace too soon. Instead he gasps softly and turns his head, clutching Arin’s thin shirt so as to ensure he will never leave. He doesn’t want to let go. Not now, not ever. Even though he _knows_ he must, at least to explain himself. Then maybe, just maybe, if Arin forgives him, they can cuddle like they always did.

Eventually Dan begins forming a sense of what exactly he came here to do. He starts whispering, “I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry, Arin, I never meant to say what I did, I didn’t mean any of that. I’m so fucking sorry.”

“Stop,” Arin says in his ear. “It doesn’t matter to me. Okay? Not anymore. It’s okay. It’s all okay.”

“Arin?” Dan breathes, swallowing a sob.

“Yeah?”

Dan shakes his head and just keeps murmuring Arin’s name until the younger man pulls him into the house and closes the door with his foot. He grips Dan’s lower back and cups his ass with his other hand. Before Dan can jump, Arin effortlessly hoists him into the air with a grunt.

 _Oh,_ Dan thinks.

Some things just never change.

He keeps his arms secured around Arin’s neck as he is slowly carried into the living room. They turn a corner and Dan is tenderly deposited on a couch, and even then he does not let go of Arin until his hands are directly lifted away. He stares up at Arin, not sure of what to say. The citrusy smell of shampoo circling Arin’s body in a fresh cloud does much to distract Dan, make him forget why he’s here. But he doesn’t look away, refuses to reveal his divided priorities.

Arin watches him for a bit before running a hand through his hair to lift it away from his face and sitting beside him. His arm automatically goes to slip around Dan’s shoulders, but he wavers, then drops it. Hurt slithers through Dan's body until he reminds himself that Arin is just as torn as he is.

“So. Dan—”

“No, hold on,” Dan says before he can continue. He needs to be the one to speak first, because he’s the one who started it all. He’s the one who needs to forget his pride, his envy, and apologize. “Please, just listen to me. And don’t talk? Until I’m done?”

Arin looks a touch apprehensive, but he nods.

Dan sighs and hugs himself, examining a cut on his palm as he gathers his thoughts. When he glances back up at Arin, he finds his eyes trained on his face, agonizingly patient.

“I’m sorry,” Dan begins. His voice is already thick with emotion, quivering terribly with each word. “I’m sorry for getting so jealous, and for shouting, and for being unreasonable and never telling you any of it before. I’m sorry for kicking you out. That, uh—you, you know I’d never do that. In my right mind. Or want to.

“God, I was so fucking awful to you, and I don’t blame you for hating me since I know you do now, but all I wanted to do was tell you how sorry I am because, well, _look_ at me.” He chokes and gestures at himself angrily. “I can’t even talk to you anymore without—without—”

Dan hiccups and shields his eyes, shoulders shaking. “I’m the worst,” he says weakly, staring at his hands. “This never should’ve happened. I never wanted it to.”

Wetness splashes onto his hand and pools in the crevices of his palm, flooding over when more droplets join the first. They’re wiped away, though, when Arin takes Dan’s hands and says, “Look at me, Dan.”

He does reluctantly, afraid of what he will see. But where he expects irritation, he finds compassion; where he assumes will be a hardening rejection, a fierce yearning calls him home. An overjoyed smile is on the verge of splitting Arin’s face in half, and his dazzling eyes sparkle with tears.

“Arin—” Dan tries to say, but Arin’s voice forces a strange sort of quiet over him.

“I made mistakes too, Dan,” he whispers, clutching the elder’s hands with a shameless need. “I didn’t try to understand you and I am _so sorry_ for that. You were right: I should’ve asked you. Even Suzy. You know, when I told her what happened—and of course I had to, you know, she got so worried for you too—she told me sometimes she felt the same. And it’s not your fault, she’s okay, we spoke about it and eventually she’ll talk to you if you’ll let her—but I wasn’t, um. I wasn’t sure if you would. To me, or her, or anyone.”

His lip quirks and his body shudders involuntarily. “I’ve stayed up every night thinking about you. I got so fucking worried. I was gonna apologize, too, but I never worked up the courage to because _I_ thought you hated me. The way you made it sound…I thought you were…” Arin breathes in and shakes his head. He dryly laughs once. “Breaking up with me?”

Dan bursts into tears at that moment, repeating _no, no, no_ over and over again while pulling Arin forward to hug him. “No, Arin, never. Fuck, I would never. I swear. I never meant for you to think that. I’m sorry. I don’t want to leave you, I don’t want you to leave, _please_ believe me.”

He won’t loosen his death grip on Arin until he feels him nod. The younger man shivers uncontrollably, nearly crushing Dan’s thinner body with his arms. He’s far more quiet about it, but Dan knows he’s crying too when he feels the moisture on his neck. Neither says anything. Not yet.

The first change in posture comes about two minutes later, when Arin’s hands leave Dan’s back and neck to slide across his body, meeting at his face over his cheeks. Dan pulls back, finding Arin’s nose against his in the close proximity. He becomes anxious all over again but steadies himself with a secure hold around Arin’s neck.

Arin absentmindedly thumbs Dan’s face in slow, small circles. His eyes offer Dan a message of a thousand unspoken words, each of them pulling Dan closer and closer to his heart. Dan can feel their breaths alternating, the slight shaking in Arin’s otherwise solid stature, the anticipation charging the heated air between their faces.

Dan gazes back, and the tiny smile that he submits is all the incentive Arin needs. He pulls Dan in and he is all too happy to oblige, scooting closer as their lips find each other through space.

All at once, those metaphors of love being like a fire or a candle being lit finally makes sense to Dan. For all his songs, all his experience, all his supposed knowledge of love and sex and passion, he has never once felt this burning before. Because when Arin kisses him, the sorrow and guilt and despair that plagued him at the start gives way to something sweeter, and it truly is as if someone struck a match inside of him and set it against a pile of tinder. Everything around him disappears and he’s floating in the air with nothing but the man he loves.

And Dan is so, so happy.

Around his face, Arin shivers even harder and the kiss deepens, a reflection of the younger man’s own inner conflict. His hands abandon Dan’s cheeks for the rest of his body again, wriggling underneath his arms to tug him closer. However, this thirst for physical contact confuses Dan when Arin abruptly breaks the kiss a minute later with a gasp.

Dan stares back, wondering if he had done something wrong. He had thought this would become a situation where they would part for a few seconds, say ‘I love you,’ make up for everything and kiss again. “Are you okay?” he asks tensely. “Did I—did you…was that not…”

“I need to give you something,” responds Arin. His mood has changed drastically, making him look shy—maybe even embarrassed—at the same time he all at once appears excited. “Can you wait here?”

“Okay…” Uncertain now, Dan watches Arin rise off of the couch, back away slowly, and then turn around to run into a hallway across the room. Dan waits alone as the seconds become uneasy minutes.

He plays with a stray thread on the couch long enough to work out nearly a foot of it before Arin finally emerges from the dark corridor. One hand is placed conspicuously behind his back. “Close your eyes?” he asks before Dan can question him.

Dan lifts a brow and cranes his neck, trying to see behind Arin. “Ar…”

“Would you just do it? Please?”

Dan hesitates, and then closes his eyes, awaiting Arin with a tentative curiosity. He hears Arin come closer to him, and he starts when Arin says, “Hold out your hands.”

He does so without inquiry, but itches to open his eyes. He waits for the longest five seconds of his life before he hears the giveaway rustling of plastic. And then his heart thrashes in a rodeo between his ribs when something small, hard, and velvet is pressed into his hands. He doesn’t dare breathe, doesn’t say anything, and he almost doesn’t want to open his eyes even when Arin tells him to.

Slowly Dan peeks open one eye, and then the other one, and takes in the sight of a simple black box sitting in the cusp of his hands. He stares for a good long second before dragging his eyes up to Arin, who looks expectantly at him. He’s fidgeting, definitely on edge, and urges, “Open it.”

Dan doesn’t look away from Arin as he fingers the edge of the lid. It can’t be a ring—but, then again, with Arin, nothing is too far out of question. Because of that, he has no idea what to expect. When he finally flips the clasp, opens the case, and sees the gift inside, he has to cover his mouth with his free hand to stop the astonished squeak from slipping out.

It’s a simple chain running through a small golden cylindrical charm encrusted with a diamond on the bottom. It looks as though it might be hollow. It’s so unusual but beautiful that Dan is sure Arin had it custom made just for his purpose. He rolls the cylinder between his hands, feeling the tiny grooves of letters in a vertical line under the pads of his fingers. If he squints, he can make out the single word: **_always._ **

“Oh, Arin…”

“Open it,” Arin repeats, softer this time.

Dan glances up before becoming engrossed with the necklace again. He gingerly twists the top half of the capsule, a little afraid that he’s going to mess with the diamond. But it comes off without much trouble, and he’s left staring at a small roll of paper that fits neatly inside.

He handles it as though it were a bomb that would detonate in his face if he held it wrong. It takes him nearly a minute, but eventually Dan manages to unroll it to stare at the photograph printed on it. And when he sees the selfie, the kiss, the smug brown eyes fixed on the camera that belongs to a face lit up by a two-year-old movie, he almost soils the second message with his tears.

**_my home._ **

It’s like a vacuum sucks all the air out of him. His hand around his mouth only gets tighter as he whimpers, closing his eyes to let the moisture escape. “Oh my God,” he mumbles. He looks up at his boyfriend. “Arin.”

Arin appears as though a thousand pounds have just been lifted from his shoulders. The worry is gone, and an unspeakable, delighted affection sits in its place. He leans forward, explaining with a grin, “I bought it for you a couple months ago. I was gonna give it to you on our third anniversary, and I wasn’t sure whether to wait to print the picture or not, but, I just couldn’t. Wait. The necklace took so long to be made and—I just, _really_ wanted you to see it. And, if I’m being honest, I was actually kind of afraid to wait. Now seemed like a good time to give it to you, though. I, uh, I’ll find something else for our anniversary.”

He stops to take a breath, and the sense of timidness returns again. “Because…I love you, and I’ll never stop loving you, and I don’t ever want you to forget that. And—I forgive you, even though there’s nothing to forgive. Can…you do the same?”

“Of course,” Dan blurts. He touches Arin’s face gratefully. “Of course, yes, I forgive you. But it wasn’t your fault.” The next few words come naturally. “I love you, too.”

Arin’s smile gets impossible bigger. “Will you, um. Will you let me put it on?”

Dan nods quickly and hands the box over to Arin, who screws the lid back on and delicately lifts the necklace out of the case. He stands to walk around Dan and sit behind him. Chills race down Dan’s spine as Arin places a hand on the nape of his neck and moves it upwards, pushing his thick hair out of the way. He uses his forearms to keep Dan’s hair up while he pulls the chain around the front of Dan’s neck and skillfully works the clasp.

Dan sits as still as he can, fingering the capsule sitting in the middle of his chest. He turns it enough for one of the lights still on in the living room to catch on the diamond and glint in Dan’s eyes. “It’s beautiful,” he breathes.

“I hoped you’d think so.” Arin removes his arms and stands up, letting Dan’s hair cascade into his regular place. He circles Dan and proudly smiles down at him. “There you go. And…fuck, it looks even better on you than I imagined it would.”

Dan blushes. “I never imagined you’d give me something like this in the first place, Ar.”

Arin sits in front of him and places two fingers on his chest, walking his fingers up to Dan’s chin and bringing a faint laugh from him. “Only the best for you,” Arin mumbles, resting his forehead against him.

Dan smiles and holds him happily, getting drunk off of the rush of adrenaline pouring out from the overwhelming success of his visit. “Thank you,” he sighs, nuzzling Arin’s head. “Thank you. I love you so much.”

Arin plays with Dan’s lip, chuckling when he yawns. “You wanna sleep here tonight, Danny?”

Dan looks up. “Will, um…will Suzy…does she know…”

“You wanna know a secret?” Arin leans past his face and whispers, “I think she’s been listening to us behind the wall. She wasn’t asleep when I left her.”

Dan waits for his own shocked, horrified reaction, but it never comes. All he feels is liberation, that maybe he won’t have to explain everything to Arin’s wife in the morning, that this whole time Suzy has always been on his side. No, not his side—the side of a healthy love. “That’s fine,” he replies, getting the feeling that Arin knew exactly how he’d feel. Or was hoping, anyway. Why else would he trust Dan with that information? “Glad she knows then.”

Arin exhales slowly. “Okay. If you’re okay with it, she may want to talk to you tomorrow morning. Discuss a few things. Are you up to that?”

“I will be.” Dan is pleased when he discovers he means it.

“God, you’re a fucking gift from the angels.” Arin kisses him, but it doesn’t last too long. They wind up sitting in a thoughtful silence against each other until Arin mumbles, “You know, I wasn’t sure you’d actually come tonight. I would’ve waited up for you if I did.”

“What do you mean?”

Arin frowns and caresses Dan’s cheeks as he asks, “Oh—you didn’t see my texts?”

A bit of awkward laughter drifts from Dan’s mouth. He looks away and rubs his neck. “Oh—oh, that was…oh. No, I-I didn’t. Check.”

Arin is quiet, making Dan get a little restless, but after a moment he snorts, “Don’t worry about it. I probably shouldn’t have expected you to. You made your way here anyway, so, no harm done. I just—I was just asking you if I could come over, or if you wanted to call me or drive here, after you didn’t respond. And—oh, that reminds me. I am taking you to the doctor’s for an x-ray tomorrow, and you can _not_ argue with that decision. You better tell me what in fuck’s sake happened to you tonight.”

Dan nods gladly and bends forward, comforted as he makes Arin’s body his pillow, something he’s done since the beginning of their friendship years and years ago. He touches the capsule and strokes not the diamond, but the word on the edge of the cylinder, scratching the grooves with his nail. “Of course, Big Cat. I owe you my life, you know.”

“Never, babe. I could say the same thing. You know that.”

“Well, thank you.”

“For what?”

“Everything.”

Arin’s voice cracks when he responds. “Always, love.”

 

.

.

.

 

_and if you hurt me_

_well, that's okay baby, only words bleed_

_inside these pages you just hold me_

_and I won't ever let you go_

 

### xi. twilight

Thee years pass. Three long years.

They don’t have an argument nearly as explosive as the one about Suzy ever again. Since then, thanks to Arin’s encouragement and assurance, Dan was able to go to his wife and confess everything. He knew Suzy already knew, and he already guessed the returning truths she offered him, but it felt so good to put everything out in the open. He also learned that Suzy had originally had similar feelings, but it never grew to such a magnitude because she had suspected Arin’s feelings for Dan long before they began actively dating. She had been able to mostly come to terms with it before it became a reality.

After they spoke and Dan apologized to her, she offered to help work things out between the three of them. It might’ve just been the sudden release of all these feelings and conflicts at once, but regardless of the cause, Dan felt infinitely better walking away from the conversation.

In doing so, Dan also unlocked another part of him that allowed for an even stronger love for Arin: the truly unconditional desire for him to be happy, no matter what the personal cost was. Kept in check, referenced reasonably, that element of his affections made it so much easier to breathe and give. Thanks to that, he is now uplifted rather than disheartened when he sees Suzy and Arin share a kiss or hold hands without him, because he knows how happy Arin is. Even if Dan isn’t the one bringing that beautiful smile to his face all the time. He even offers to treat them, set up dates and organize the little things. Suzy soon does the same for him and Arin, despite Dan’s promise that he didn’t need her to repay him.

Hundreds and hundreds of new photos have been added and deleted shortly after being printed and hung up somewhere around Arin’s and Dan’s houses alike (they spend so much time going from place to place, though, it soon becomes hard to distinguish whose house is whose). The photographs they replace are removed with care and set in a case shared by both households. Dan never removes his necklace, never parts with his own photograph inside. On the day of their third anniversary, he finds the opportunity to return the favor and gifts Arin with a similar chain. His is a more obvious heart-shaped locket, but it matches Arin’s flamboyance perfectly.

Arin accepts it with elation and vows to never take it off. (He honors that vow.) It even becomes a popular conversation starter after Arin discovers how much he loves the picture inside, of their slow dance at the NSP release party. When he learns Suzy was the one who took it, both Dan and Suzy almost lose their lives in Arin’s subsequent delight.

They leave footprints all over the world in the following years. Suzy lets them head off to Japan again—the two of them alone, this time—for the week of their fourth anniversary before joining them for countless more international trips. They spend a month in Western Europe and, later, head down to Australia (after much ‘gentle’ persuasion from Ross). During their trip in Europe, Dan manages to strike up a deal with a restaurant in Paris and plays waiter one evening for Arin and Suzy. He’s rewarded handsomely for that humble show later that night in his wing of the shared Hanson-Avidan suite. Suzy left that evening with Holly and presumably slept in her room to leave the two men alone, but the following morning, they find two cups of cold coffee on the island. Between the mugs is a Sticky with a message scrawled on it: **got some complaints from next door. quiet down you assholes!!! <3**

NSP scores another high-ranking album the fifth year of Dan and Arin’s relationship. Dan entertains the idea of another formal party, but he settles on the traditional, wild celebration. He does, however, dance with Arin a couple nights after, when he invites Dan to a gazebo in a dimly lit park. They hold each other and kiss to the rhythm of music that never plays, twirling to the lyrics of a song they never hear. And Dan never forgets that night, especially since Arin sends him a picture of them dancing taken from a distance by somebody he had commissioned. The photo is framed beside his bed, right next to the open necklace box with a copy of the movie selfie displayed inside.

On their sixth anniversary, they go to a long-awaited Broadway premiere, courtesy of some of NSP’s ‘special’ contacts. Arin has a ball walking down the red carpet into the Dolby Theater, and Dan spends most of the time restraining him. Privately, he thinks Arin deserves every bit of the excitement he both feels and receives from other guests who recognize them. He also thinks that he has never seen Arin look more handsome in such a regal maroon suit. He does regret telling him a little, at least in front of everyone else, because when Arin hears that, he promptly spins Dan around, drops him into a dip over his knee, and kisses him madly right there. They only stop when the laughter and exclamations of amiable surprise gets too loud.

Arin sings along with nearly every song, surprising Dan yet again with his musical talent and lyrical knowledge. For the hundredth time in six years, Dan wishes he could propose, right under the Broadway lights in the heart of Golden Coast. But what is a formal marriage when you’ve got such a foundational devotion to each other, something that certainly surpasses any official testament?

Still, he fingers the box with the ring concealed in his jacket's inside pocket during the entire performance, wondering what he could give it for and when. Suzy knew about it, even gave him the permission to kneel if he wanted to. He thanked her but said he wouldn’t, feeling it wouldn’t be appropriate. That’s the only thing he’s ascertained about how he would give Arin his final gift.

Later, when the show ends and Arin stares at him with stars shining in his eyes, brighter than the ones that glitter up and down the Hollywood boulevard, Dan thinks, _Fuck it._ It’s easily the most alleviating thought he’s ever had.

 

He leads Arin to a clearing surrounded by elegant benches and little birch trees standing in planters. And there, beside the ornate fountain with only moonlight to peer through, Dan takes out the box and says, “Arin Hanson—”

Arin gasps. “Dan.”

“These last six years, you’ve given me more than I’ve ever hoped out of life,” Dan continues, ignoring Arin’s glowing face. “And—it’s been on my mind, for a while now, how I could maybe show you that. This isn’t a proposal, I know I can’t marry you, but. Um.” He takes a deep breath and opens the box towards Arin. His hands shake so hard he thinks it might fall from between his fingers. “No matter how it happens, no matter _what_ happens, I want to live the rest of my life with you, Arin. So I guess what I’m asking is: will you let me come along?”

Arin is speechless for a solid seven seconds. And then he speaks. “Yes,” he stutters. “God, yes, of _course,_ oh my _God,_ Dan, you ridiculous beautiful angel—”

There are no more words exchanged, because Dan has hardly enough time to slip the ring onto Arin’s finger before they’re being pulled together by a drawstring and kissing in the clearing. Arin laughs into Dan’s mouth, breathless in shock, and picks him up to spin him around. Dan grabs onto Arin for dear life and laughs too, and he doesn’t know if he’s the one saying _I love you_ or if it’s Arin. They don’t part until Dan’s phone rings with Suzy’s number.

She asks if he did it. He says yes.

 

Three beautiful, incredible years.

 

It’s the longest positive streak Dan has never experienced. He doesn’t get the time to worry about the end until it comes. In retrospect, it’s probably best he never thought it would ever stop, because he surely would have regretted it.

 

The end comes in the form of a cough that plagues Dan for weeks and weeks, one that he tries to hide from Brian and Arin, which only dooms him. It’s only discovered when he skips one too many practices, wheezes one too many times during the show, wears one too many layers in the Power Hours. He doesn’t know he’s been found out until Arin walks in on him spitting blood in the bathroom.

It comes in the form of a frantic doctor’s appointment, followed rapidly by an x-ray. Fear and pain begins to torture Dan during every waking moment, and thoughts of something dark and foreboding begin to encroach on his mind. Not even Arin can expel them.

He's scared.

They both are.

It comes in the form of five small, short words. Five words solemnly delivered to him in a sterile room bathed in light that’s much too bright, a room flooded with the scent of antiseptic. Five words spoken by a man in white with a somber expression who just couldn’t meet Dan’s eyes:

“It’s lung cancer, Mr. Avidan.”

And with that, the three years end for Dan. The days of fun and dances and Paris vacations and love in the night and Hollywood proposals have never seemed so far away. He becomes a different man while he watches the threads of his world come undone. The pieces of the puzzle that Arin had so lovingly put into place begin to fall apart. Within the week, Dan is ruined.

He loses himself and he’s not sure how, exactly, but so soon there’s already a chunk of him missing. One night he listens to Passenger’s Let Her Go and he almost kills himself choking on his laughter at the irony. The laughter quickly transforms into earthshaking coughs that pierce his body, spears his abdomen and head until he doubles over, on the verge of passing out.

He doesn’t have the heart to tell the Grumps the news, so he finds someone else to. He can’t bring himself to inform Arin personally. Instead he turns to Brian, which is hard enough. When everyone else finds out, Dan has to excuse himself from the room because the heaviness of the atmosphere is too much for him to bear. When he sees Arin again outside of the meeting, he can tell the man is trying very hard to stay strong for him. He stops Dan before he can say anything, already explaining the plan for treatment and outlining timelines, and it’s all Dan can do to the find the hope in his words. It becomes almost impossible when he sees the pain contorting Arin’s face.

The visits to the hospital get more and more frequent. Because of Dan’s decision to hide it until it got intolerable, he had allowed the cancer to progress faster than it would have. It’s already in its third stage, rapidly nearing the fourth. The doctors told him it seemed to be more of hereditary cause than environmental, though his distant history of smoking might have begun to irritate the dormant cancer cells in the past. His age is also determined as a factor, and though he’s still got ten years before his body starts seriously dying, his immune systems are already beginning to have to work twice as hard. They simply can’t keep up.

Dan doesn’t have the time to brainstorm reasons why he’s suddenly terribly sick, because his schedules are now always full, much to his displeasure. He can’t remember the last time he recorded a proper Grump session.

Talk of surgery circulates for a few days until they decide that it would be ultimately ineffective in the long run, due to the advancement of the cancer cells, and a pointless cost. So the idea is trashed and new ones come up, this time suggesting chemotherapy and radiation. Dan rarely ever talks during these times, too busy fighting off the agony the plagues him unpredictably throughout his body and throughout the day, letting his friends do the explaining and calculations for him until he gets fed up and leaves again. This happens time after time without fail.

His house is never cleaned anymore. It’s always dark and dusty and silent except for the constant coughing. Fortunately, he’s been spending more and more time with Arin since finding out, but Arin still throws a fit when he finds out about the state of Dan’s house. He calms down ten minutes later and offers to get someone to clean it for him or even do it himself. He bluntly invites Dan to permanently stay with him when the elder declines the proposal. It takes some time, but eventually Dan agrees. He promises the Hansons that he wouldn’t let his symptoms disturb them, even after Suzy and Arin both assure him neither of them minds.

Strangely enough, his chronic lack of sleep becomes a silver lining within it all, because many times when he leaves the guest room for water or medicine, he finds Arin lying on the couch, waiting for him. Dan always downs the cup of hot tea already sitting on the coffee table before getting onto the sofa with him, curling into his side and trying to keep his coughing to a minimum. He sleeps better those nights, under Arin’s arm. But he does his best to restrain himself to his bed, because he knows Arin suffers from the irregular sleeping schedule.

Chemotherapy begins. Dan grows accustomed to the corridors and walls of white. The pricks of needless in his skin. The looks of sympathy he receives every time he goes into that damned place. It’s scary at first, but eventually Dan learns to accept it. He always thinks of Arin throughout each and every visit to keep himself sane.

Whenever he gets back home to Arin and Suzy, he makes a beeline for the master bedroom and waits, completely still on his bed until his boyfriend finds him. Arin never says anything, knowing exactly what Dan needs and embraces him, whispering to him when Dan starts crying. And every time Arin starts crying, too, he never makes a sound.

The weeks drone on and on, and Dan finally gets a number. Ten months. He has ten months to try and fight this off. That’s when they decide to put him on radiation therapy along with the chemo. The costs begin to take a toll on their everyday life, and Dan longs for the days of Game Grumps and Ninja Sex Party with a heart-wrenching passion. The band officially takes hiatus for an undefined amount of time. (Dan knows Brian’s going to dissolve the band soon. He never asks when.)

He misses singing. He misses laughing. He misses talking. He misses those three years, those six years, all the years before then.

One night, Arin surprises him, coming into his room around one o’clock with a guitar. He sits on the edge of Dan’s bed and begins to play. Dan’s already tearing up when he realizes that the melody lifting from the guitar and from between Arin’s lips is the same song they slow-danced to a millennia ago.

For a while, radiation therapy actually proves to be quite effective. It’s awful, it’s monotonous, and combined with the chemo, it’s exhausting. But it gives Dan and Arin and everyone else a shred of light for the first time in a while. He has a reason to smile, and the brightness on Arin’s and Suzy’s faces when Dan actually cracks a joke one day makes the pain worth it all. Brian invites the whole group over and they have a good old-fashioned Game Grumps party. Dan even finds it in himself to pick up a microphone and sing for everyone while Brian and Arin man the instruments. Everyone is on their feet and cheering by the time the last note fades.

Dan and Arin find time to go out on dates again, trying to cram months’ worth of nights and kisses and gentle touches into a few collective weeks. If anything else, the cancer has given him a chance to view life from a different angle, and he’s pleased when he discovers that he genuinely enjoys every second he spends with his boyfriend. The gazes last longer and when they kiss, neither of them want to part for anything. There’s a darker current running underneath their affection for each other, though: as the ten months begin to slowly tick away, the risk of them not being able to kiss one another again gets higher each day. So even when they’re around other people, they never let go of each other’s hand, clinging to each other for the life they have.

Life is bearable during that brief pocket of hope. Somehow, it’s no surprise when Dan’s health suddenly plummets into an ever deeper downwards spiral once the radiation therapy stops working. It’s as if it was filling up a gauge in Dan’s body, providing efficient treatment until the gauge reached its capacity. After that, it bounced off of him without further reward. He’s left to deal with the side effects on their own with nothing to show for it.

It physically hurts him to see the distress on Arin’s face when he refuses the smallest plate of food because he knows it’ll only come back up five minutes later. He’s lost at least fifteen pounds already since the beginning of treatment, and an additional five or so pounds melt away when he stops eating. The coughing and vomiting gets so bad that Dan’s lucky to get six hours of sleep a week.

The timer on his life shortens by three months.

He knows they don’t think he’ll live.

And, honestly, he hopes they’re right.

 

* * *

 

 

It’s sunny the afternoon Arin finds him sitting on the couch, positioned to look outside. Dan’s face is ashen and his cheeks sink ghoulishly into his face. Arin tries to hide it, but Dan catches his boyfriend’s flinch when he turns to blankly look at him.

Arin stops in his tracks to stare back, and it’s like all the sadness in the world is trying to crush him at once. Dan tries to smile. “Hey, Ar,” he says. He never speaks above a hoarse whisper.

“Hey, Dan…” Arin struggles for words, so close to breaking. “What are you…what’ve you been up to?”

Dan licks his lips. “Can I have some water?” he asks, feeling bad for the request even though Arin is already moving. He coughs only once in the time it takes for Arin to fill a glass and hand it to him, and he drinks it greedily, thanking Arin with his eyes when he empties it in one go.

Arin anxiously watches him from his place on the cushion beside him. He takes the glass from Dan and puts it on the side. “Are you okay?” he eventually asks in that tone that tells Dan of course he knows the answer is no, but maybe he means mentally rather than physically. Dan is a walking corpse at this point, anyway.

Dan wrinkles his brow. Hears the different meaning underneath Arin’s otherwise stupid question. He shrugs as Arin takes Dan’s cold hands in his, wanting to escape in that heat. “I don’t know,” he says. He can hardly meet Arin’s eyes. They’re both so shattered, so sad and so ill, in their own different ways. “I don’t know what I feel.”

“Try?” Arin begs. “For me? Just—tell me how you think you feel. I don’t care if it doesn’t make sense.”

Dan looks out the window. His eyes follow a pair of squirrels chasing each other around the backyard. “Scared,” he chooses finally. “I’m scared. Really…fucking…scared.”

Arin’s grip gets tighter. “Yeah?”

Dan nods and looks back. “It’s…kind of a lonely scared,” he admits. “Even though I know you’re right here. Which helps a lot. But at the same time…it doesn’t.”

“Why not?”

“Because…” Dan lifts the other man’s hands to his face, where he rests a trembling kiss against Arin’s fingers. “‘Cause I don’t want to leave you here.”

Arin comes in close, his face pleading with Dan. “Don’t say that. You’re not gonna leave me here, okay? You’re gonna be alright, and you’re gonna survive, and things are gonna go back to normal,” he insists. “You’re _not_ going to leave me, Dan. I won’t let you. I’m never gonna let you go.” He lets out a little sob and his nails begin to dig into Dan’s hands. Dan just stares at them where they press into him, not feeling them at all. “I’ll never let you leave me. You _said_ you wouldn’t—you said, you said you’d spend the rest of your life with me and I’d spend the rest of my life with you, and I’m still holding you to that. You and I—we’re gonna die _together,_ okay?”

Dan smiles at him sadly. “You and I know better than that, baby.” He leans in to give him a kiss that Arin doesn’t immediately return in his pain. Against his mouth, Dan whispers, “I’m sorry.”

 

.

.

.

 

_when I'm away, I will remember how you kissed me_

_under the lamppost back on Sixth street_

_hearing you whisper through the phone,_

_"wait for me to come home."_

 

### xii. new moon

Waves lap at the water’s edge, pushing and pulling in a soothing rhythm. A chilly breeze rushes in from the gray ocean, rustling through their hair and in the cattails in the thick bushes behind the white coast. Sea foam dots the sand for a few seconds before it fizzes out of existence. Somewhere to their left, a seagull crows as it searches for something to eat.

The beach is empty besides Dan and Arin. It isn’t an ideal day for swimming, anyway, considering the overcast skies and the cold temperatures. But it’s ideal for them, because Dan’s days are so few that chances are, with his luck, he can probably count them using one hand.

They removed him from chemotherapy shortly after stopping radiation when it became clear the possible benefits were nowhere near worth the side effects and misery it was putting Dan through. His body ached and throbbed with pain that sometimes got so bad that it temporarily incapacitated him and confined him to a bed in a stuffy room.

The decision to relinquish treatment was easily the hardest conclusions Dan had ever been forced to come to. He was giving up the slim possibility of living for a guaranteed end to his torture, and with it came a twisted peace of mind. It wasn’t like he was going to make it in the first place—he realizes, now, that he was never supposed to heal. It was all for show, all for everyone’s false hopes that maybe, by some miracle that was never his to earn, he would recover.

Arin spent every waking moment with him after the decision was set in stone. Suzy let him without hesitation. There were many nights where all three of them stayed up together, with Dan nestled in the middle of them, silently cuddling the sick man until he fell asleep holding their hands. During the time Dan spent living with the Hansons, he had grown awfully close to Suzy, and he came to consider her as much his family as Arin was. When Arin finally decided Dan needed a change of scenery before his time was up, it nearly broke him to say goodbye to the woman who, if not Arin, was responsible for every good thing that came out of this final, golden age of Dan’s life.

Publishing that final video, one of the few videos with the face-cam all of the fans loved, was almost as hard as stepping away from life support. In it was Dan, Arin, Suzy, and Brian, and Dan spoke for as long as he could before he had to fall quiet. The others spoke for him, already knowing what he'd want to say. Halfway through, Dan just broke down crying. He couldn't stop saying goodbye, thank you, I love you to the fans who never gave up on them.

He sang one last song in that video: _Danny, Don't You Know?_ Brian hummed along with him, while Arin choked on the chorus and gave up trying. Dan's voice broke halfway through the bridge and he stumbled until the end, finishing it only with the thoughts of the ones who'd watch it. And then he was bidding farewell to the viewers, knowing perfectly well they'd never understand how much they'd changed his life. Then the camera shut off, and it was over.

Saying goodbye to everyone was impossible in every aspect of the word. Though everyone knew this was a trip Dan would not be returning from alive, nobody said it. But certainly, they were all thinking it as Dan went around, tearfully hugging everyone and making sure they all knew how grateful he was for everything they’ve ever done. It helped Dan rest easy, too, knowing that when Arin returned, he’d find the stash of letters that Dan wrote for everyone and kept under his bed. He hasn’t told the man about them, but he trusts Arin to hand them out to the right people when he’s gone.

The letter he wrote for Arin, however, he put underneath the necklace box right before he leaves. Arin would find that one first, in all its five-page glory. The only one that came close to that length was Brian’s, whom Dan embraced on a couch with for nearly ten minutes. They cried and cried and it broke Dan’s heart because Brian _never_ cries.

It was over before he was ready.

They decided to spend Dan’s last week—or however much time he had left—at the seashore. A friend of Arin’s let him borrow his beach house for the occasion, letting him off the hook with no rent after hearing why. When they drove there, Dan grew more and more still as they got closer to the beach, knowing this is where he would die.

 _And what a fitting end it will be,_ he thought.

They found the small beach vacant behind the house, waiting just for them, and Dan decided he didn’t hate the universe as much as he thought he did. It’s trying its best, just like he always did. So he forgave it.

They walked down here every day since they arrived, and sometimes Arin had to carry Dan. But he’s always been a thin guy, and after losing so much weight, he figures that for Arin, it’s like carrying an oversized teddy bear. And they would sit here, watching the waves crash, for hours, just making conversation and ignoring the inevitable. Sometimes Arin would leave him for just a minute to grab some food, and each time he’d return in a rush, failing to hide his fear. Dan knows it’s because every time, Arin might not find him breathing.

It took a week before Dan finally woke up this morning, wrapped tightly in Arin’s arms, chilled with a knowledge he felt in every dying cell of his body. That today is the last one he’ll live to see. He woke Arin calmly, saying nothing other than, “You can’t leave me today, baby. Okay?”

Arin opened his eyes and stared at him. Dan looked steadily back, watching a fight play out in his gaze as he struggled to contain his terror. “Okay,” he said at last. And then: “Always.”

Now they’re here, sitting on the cool sand. Dan inhales, clutching his knees to his chest. It may not be good for his horribly deteriorated lungs, but it’s not like his health could be much worse. The tang of sea salt is strangely fresh on his tongue when he opens his mouth, and Dan suspects that it’s the reinvigorating sensation it fills him with that has kept him alive this long. Maybe he’d already be dead, had he stayed back in the city.

The mist of the ocean spray hits him and washes over his face. He lifts his head up, faces the sun sinking deeper on the horizon. He’s almost made it to the evening. Was he wrong? Would he make the day? _No,_ he decides. _I’ll die in my sleep tonight if I don’t die during the day._

He tries to feel afraid. But with the smell of Arin both on his borrowed sweatshirt and directly beside him, holding him to Arin’s wider body, Dan feels only a peace he hasn’t experienced since he faux-proposed to Arin.

He twists the ring on his left hand, staring at the sapphire sitting snug in the spirals of the ornate silver band. He never expected to wear a ring that symbolized as much as this one did; then again, he never expected to ever be on a path that would end this way, dying with someone who became far more than a business partner to him.

“Isn’t it beautiful?” Arin suddenly asks, looking out at the horizon.

Dan glances up. “You’ve asked that every day, Ar,” he chuckles.

“Because every day, it’s different. So. Isn’t it?”

“Yeah,” Dan says, leaning into Arin. He watches a gull float on the waves, way out beyond the beach. “Yeah, it is.”

“I wish it wasn’t gray. You can’t really enjoy it. Have I told you how it looks in the summer?”

“I don’t think you have.”

“I still can’t believe you’ve never really gone to the beach,” Arin marvels, shaking his head.

Dan laughs and coughs mildly. “It’s not like,” he explains, “I’ve never _gone,_ of course I’ve been to the beach, I just never swim. But—yeah, it’s been a while.”

“And you’ve never been here in the summer.”

“Not recent enough to remember, no.”

Arin is quiet for about a minute, and Dan thinks he won’t actually say anything until: “Then I’ll be sure to take you here next year with Suzy and I so you can see it, okay?”

Dan doesn’t take Arin seriously for a second. He won’t even make it to tomorrow, let alone next summer. But he feels the urge to play along, whatever Arin may mean. “Sure. How does it…how _does_ it look in the summer?”

Arin flashes him a quick grin, the closest he will get to true happiness now. He says, “Well, for one thing, it’s not a depressing _gray._ It’s—it’s sinfully blue and green and there’s actually _people_ here. And the sun, it, it twinkles on the waves, y’know? It’s all bright and happy and all kinds of people will spread out and make this beach like. Obnoxiously loud.” He gestures at the empty swaths of sand surrounding them. “Some of ‘em play music in their tents. And then there’s all kinds of volleyball games that people just _join_ sometimes. Everyone’s surfing or swimming or making food all the time. And oh, _God,_ the surfers…”

Dan listens to him with a small, gradually widening smile. He loves the energy mounting in Arin’s voice, correlating with the passion the man clearly has for the beach. That excitement was one of the first things that made Dan fall in love with him, the way he could so easily spin entrancing tales with only his mouth. Dan hears the longing, the fierce desire for Dan to see it with him even though Arin never says it explicitly.

When Arin has to stop to breathe, Dan says, “It sounds incredible. I’d love to come back with you. Maybe even swim around. You know—” and here he touches Arin’s chin, brings his face around to his— “you are the only human being on this planet that could make me get into the water with them.”

Arin’s breath catches. He reaches out and cups Dan’s cheeks, and Dan shivers as his hands slowly slide back into his shortened hair and bare his face. He thrusts his head forward and kisses Arin tenderly, taking the time to taste him and let the memory of it build itself, reinforce its shape, sink into Dan like a harpoon. He traces Arin’s jaw with one hand, tracing the contours of his face with his fingers. With his other hand Dan strokes Arin’s hair, wondering how he had never realized how soft it is, before holding the back of his head.

He begins to taste salt on Arin’s lips. Dan blinks, confused, and leans back to see silent tears rolling down his face.

“I’d love that, too,” Arin says. His eyes dart between Dan’s, looking all at once quite shaken. “Promise—promise you’ll let me take you here again?”

Now it’s Dan’s turn to lose his breath. “I,” he whispers, “I promise.”

Arin nods, blinking furiously. He wraps his arms around Dan as he says, “Good.”

They continue to watch the tide push in and out. It begins to get colder as the sun only gets closer to the skyline, but it only gives them an excuse to hold each other tighter.

As Dan observes this scene before him, a sad little thought distracts him from his boyfriend. How the sun always sets, won’t give anyone more than the fifteen or so hours of daylight each day, beginning and ending each cycle without making special exceptions for even the most deserving of people. That’s just how nature is, confined to a set of laws that never change. Dan supposes his body is the same way. Everyone dies, and there isn’t a soul in the world who is outside of the fact. Unfortunately, unlike the days on Earth, there are and always will be lives who simply end earlier.

Dan shudders and rests his head on Arin’s shoulder. All of his attention is, for the moment, centered on his breathing, because he’s afraid if he turns it away, he might stop. But his deep breaths come easy for once. He’s not coughing, nor does he have any inclination to. It’s a final gift from the universe in return for all the suffering it pushed Dan through, allowing him to enjoy this one last hour of serenity without interruption. He mouths a silent _Thank you,_ even though he’s not sure who it might be to. Big-G God, other gods, ancestral spirits, maybe even the universe itself. But, he reasons, some sort of thanks is in order.

“Are you still afraid of the sea, Danny?” Arin asks when a gull glides in front of them.

Dan lifts and drops his shoulders, considering his answer. “Not really,” he replies. “But I think that’s just because I have you here. And because you make it sound so great.”

“Just great?”

“Fine. It sounds _extravagantly magnificent_ according to your _words of utmost brilliance._ ” Dan nudges Arin. “You like that?”

“Very much,” Arin laughs. Dan’s face grows hot when he realized he did that, he made Arin laugh, he made Arin smile and maybe even forget Dan’s dying for the moment. He can’t help but kiss Arin happily, squeezing his shoulders with a fierce fondness.

Arin breaks away later and looks at Dan in surprise. “What was that for?”

“I like hearing you laugh,” Dan smiles, still holding Arin tightly. “I like making you happy.”

“Oh my fucking God.” Arin pulls Dan into his lap and hugs him around the waist, nuzzling his face into Dan’s neck.“You always make me happy,” he says. “From the day I first met you to now, you’ve only ever made me happy. I hope—I hope I did the same.”

“You still are,” Dan says gently, tilting Arin’s head up. “You know, you’re the one who’s been keeping me alive this long?”

Arin’s entire face tightens in the largest grimace Dan has ever seen. He lowers his eyes and Dan knows he shouldn’t have said that. “Fuck, I’m sorry, I—”

“Don’t apologize, you dork.” Arin inhales and sighs. The smile is gone. “You didn’t do anything wrong. You never have.”

Dan elects to just dip his head in silence. Arin pulls him in and Dan half sits, half lays on Arin’s body, now facing away from the ocean. But he trades the sight of the sea for the sound of it, the sound that almost becomes a song when he puts the side of his head against Arin’s chest and hears his heartbeat drumming somewhere under his skin. It’s steady, it’s hypnotizing, it almost lulls Dan to sleep right there. He keeps his eyes open against the urge to fall, though, knowing that he will not wake up the next time he loses consciousness.

The fatigue he all at once feels only reminds him of the timer that hovers just above his head, the clock in his heart, erasing seconds from him without fail. He wonders how many he has left. Then he wonders how much he has left to tell Arin—only to find the list is infinite. He doesn’t have time to tell him how wonderful Arin makes him feel just by being there, how much he loves the way Arin snores through his nose at night, how thankful he’ll always be for that one day, six years ago, when Arin told him he should be afraid of a dying relationship.

And he supposes that’s exactly what he’s faced with now, only it’s so much more different than he expected it to be.

He decides he might as well start talking now if he wants to say as much as he can before his voice starts shutting down. “At first I loved your eyes,” Dan begins, making Arin twitch and look at him. He smiles at the puzzled stare. “And then I loved your lips. And then your hair, and then the way you’re still scared of spiders just like me. I always loved your laugh. It’s so infectious, you know, the way you always make everyone laugh too.

“And I always loved the way you can make me smile. No one else can do it the same way, you know that? I started to figure it out during the first year I recorded with you, because there was this thing that was so different about you. I don’t think I decided what it was until now. It’s not really a _thing,_ exactly. I think it’s more…who you are. All of you. Take anything away, from the person you are, and it wouldn’t be the same. Wouldn’t be my Arin.”

Arin’s eyes begin to widen when he starts to understand what Dan’s monologue means, but he doesn’t get the chance to interrupt because Dan keeps pushing on with the confidence of a man on his deathbed.

“I never really let myself hope that you’d become more than a comedy partner, or a best friend to me. But maybe that was my biggest mistake, because I could’ve been this happy _so much sooner._ At least…” Dan takes a shuddering breath. His eyelids are beginning to get heavy. “At least I didn’t die without discovering what we could be together. At least I got to be here, at the shore with you, like we planned that one time, remember?”

Arin’s voice is almost lost in the wind. “Of course I do.”

Dan smiles faintly. He pushes past all the fake conversations they’ve been holding, reaching deep within himself and voicing the reality that they both know they couldn’t avoid forever like this. “You won’t forget me, right, Arin?”

“Not a chance,” Arin blurts. “There’s not a universe that exists where I could forget.” He doesn’t speak anymore because he’s too busy kissing Dan and pulling him closer and closer into his lap.

With every second their lips touch, a tiny piece of Dan’s energy drains from his body. His mind works overtime to remember what it feels like to kiss Arin. He hangs onto every breath of cologne mingled with sea salt, every noticeable pull at his sweatshirt and then his ear-length curls. He stores away the feeling of little nibbles at his lips and counts the times their noses bump against each other’s faces.

The waves roar louder and louder until it’s deafening, and all Dan can hear are the sounds of the ocean, the ringing in his ears, and the distant sound of Arin audibly crying.

He’s struggling to keep his eyes open and focused by the time Arin pulls away from him. The man’s face is blotchy and red with the control it takes to speak through the grief. “I promise I’ll keep you alive, Dan,” he swears. “I’m never taking our pictures down. I’ll remember everything we’ve ever done, okay?”

“Put the photo with me, okay?” Dan requests softly. “And—and gardenias.”

“Tons of gardenias. All over the place.”

Dan is fading fast. Every breath is a conscious gulp of oxygen, and talking is even harder. “Tell—tell Brian, thank you, and Suzy, and, and Ross…and…”

“I’ll tell everyone. I’ll tell them all. They’ll know.”

“Put the ring…and the necklace…”

“With you. Right next to you.”

“No!”

Arin flinches back, startled. “What?”

“No,” Dan says, and he lifts a shaking finger to poke Arin’s chest. “You. You wear them, okay? You…keep me alive.”

Arin closes his eyes and whimpers as Dan kisses a tear away. “Yeah,” he says. “Yeah, okay.”

“Okay,” Dan whispers back. He feels like he should be in pain, his lungs should be inflamed and burning up where they shudder in his ribs. All he feels is a pressure, like an elephant is sitting on his chest. He’s not sure he can manage another word.

Arin is waiting anxiously, wide-eyed and scared. “Anything else?” he pushes, just wanting to hear Dan speak again. “Dan?”

Dan shouldn’t be able to speak, not with the heaviness in his numbing body. But for Arin, his determination is too strong. He will try. He always has.

“I love you, Arin,” he gasps. “I love you more than anyone else in this world.”

Arin kisses him between heartbeats and stumbles over his words. “I love you too, Daniel. Always and forever and ever and ever.”

Dan wraps his entire body around Arin’s, trying to give him all he has left, while he fends of the intruding bitterness that he knows isn’t anywhere but inside of him. He’s terrified, but at the same time, it’s okay. Arin is right there, holding him, and he knows he’ll never let go, even in death. The idea sets him at ease, and he calms down to find his last few breaths.

“I’ll see you soon, right, Dan?” his boyfriend chokes, grip like steel.

Dan pulls back. His vision dims, but he doesn’t need sight to know the face of the man he loves. He feels their necklaces touch each other, symbolizing a bond that transcends this sick, broken world. Dan inhales one last time, filling his ruined organs with the smell of the sea and of Arin. Of freedom and love. Of Earth and heaven.

“I’ll wait for you forever, Big Cat,” he promises, and presses his lips against the other man one last time.

He lets the kiss distract him as the air slowly, slowly abandons him, surrendering his body to the darkness he has fought for so long. Now he’s ready for it, and he walks into it voluntarily, knowing full well that he has accomplished what he needed to do at last.

But Dan looks behind him one more time, long enough to feel Arin whisper one last _I love you_ against his lips. It’s enough to make him smile into the kiss he can no longer sense, trusting that Arin can feel it enough for the both of them. It isn’t hard to let go of his breath, his life, because he knows he’s died happily.

And finally, finally, finally, Dan finds rest.

A million miles away, a man weeps to the ocean with his lover limp in his arms.

 

.

.

.

 

_They hold a small ceremony in a local church a couple weeks after Dan’s death. It’s outside in the courtyard, abloom with bushes and bushes of gardenias. The air is flooded with the sweet fragrance, a scent Dan always associated with happiness._

 

_Dan’s body is held in a loaned casket made of polished birch, and an arrangement of roses from Arin lies on the center. A single printed photo rests nestled in the flowers, and a chain with a golden capsule with a single word engraved on its side hangs from the stems._

 

_Arin scatters Dan’s ashes on the shore he died on, three weeks after the funeral._

 

_He sobs all the while._

 

_But as he watches the dust disappear with each pull of the waves, every gentle current of the wind, he knows he’ll be okay someday._

 

_Because Dan is._

 

_And, really, that’s all that matters._

 

_He wears Dan’s necklace, just as he promised, right underneath his own. The ring that came to mean so much more than a marriage that could have been rests on his right hand, opposite Suzy’s wedding band, so that everyone knows of the bond the three of them shared._

 

_He never takes either of them off._

 

_When he finally finds the courage to pull out that case of old photos, Arin sits near the little memorial while he stares at the printed pictures. The case is also filled with things fans have sent: consolation letters, pieces of art, crafts, bits of memorabilia from their shows and photos of their own. He laughs. He cries. He mourns._

 

_One day, when everything is alright again, he’ll see Dan once more._

 

_But for now, all he has are the photographs._

 

.

.

.

 

_END_

 

**Author's Note:**

> I want to give a HUGE thank you to every single one of you, both those who have read the first fic and now this one, and those who have only read this new version. But an even greater thanks goes to the commenters on the original, because you are the reason I decided to revise and republish it with an additional year of skill and experience under my belt. If I could dedicate this story to all of you, I would. But you know who you are, and again, I thank you for all your support. Obviously, it's helped a lot, as this version is a whopping 10,000 words longer than the original. It's also worth noting I only had the patience to edit this twice, so there may be tweaks and changes within the first week or so within the initial date of posting this. That's just how I roll.
> 
> Thank you for being here, and I encourage you to leave a comment if you have even the slightest inclination to, because that's my driving force in this area. What you feel reading this, I felt writing this. So thank you, from the bottom of my heart, for taking this journey with me.
> 
> (unnecessary author's note: I am PAINFULLY aware of the inaccuracies concerning cancer treatment, but the amount of research I'd have to do and the simple case of my being a young student just doesn't allow for me to get all the facts right. but I'm willing to bet you did not come here for a fault in our stars parody. in fact I know a handful of you might have even forgotten the major character death tag, so. all I have to say is? do treat yourself to some chocolate and Kleenex, because this story was harsh. good day :))
> 
> EDIT: 1/9/19: so who fucking knew Dan has a legit girlfriend named Ashley because well I 200% did not at the time of writing this so like. don't start filing lawsuits because holy shit that is one hell of a ridiculous coincidence and frankly I'm pretty Shook™


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